Willing to recheck your assumptions?

By Greg Turnquist

Greg is a member of the Spring team, an author of several books on Spring Boot, conference speaker, and the lead for Spring Data JPA.

December 12, 2012

I remember growing up how I HATED fruitcake. My dad was a fan of it, but I sure as heck wasn’t. It’s kind of awkward, because my dad and I eat the craziest stuff that neither my mother nor my two other brothers cared for. The biggest? Pickled herring. I love that stuff. And I haven’t found anyone other than my dad who will wander within ten feet of it.

My in-laws strangely enough tend to be a tad on the picky side. This means that I am the “bold” one that will probably eat just about anything. It is up to me to introduce my 3-year-old daughter to fried fish. She seems to dig it, but my wife, try though she has, just can’t take it. My sister-in-law says she’ll eat tilapia, which I find to be the most bland fish out there (reason she’ll eat?)

This was all floating in my head as the Christmas holiday season approached. I wondered why I didn’t like fruitcake as a kid. I reviewed other things I didn’t like at the time, like walnuts, cheesecake, and blue cheese dressing. I love those things now!

Taking a gamble

So I decided to take a gamble. I hunted online for a highly recommended fruitcake, not one of those mass produced ones found at the grocery store. I stumbled across Assumption Abbey Fruitcakes, handmade by some monks in Missouri. I got online and ordered one.

It arrived yesterday afternoon. Picking it up was hard! The thing weighed in at 2 pounds. I chilled it for a few hours according to directions. The whole day, I kept thinking in my head, “I bet it’s going to taste great!” Yesterday evening, after putting the kids to bed, I cut a piece and sat down to taste this big and expensive gamble. It was fantastic!

I realized one of my assumptions, that I didn’t like fruitcake, was just another lingering relic of my childhood. I’m glad I cleared that up, because now I plan to enjoy one of these every year. My wife said she wasn’t interested, so I guess it’s all mine!

Any assumptions holding you back?

Are there any assumptions that are holding you back, either in life or in software development? Any particular bit of technology that was horrible four years ago, but you have heard people making great strides in lately? Maybe you should revisit it, and recheck those assumptions.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *