Ode to Reese's Cups

In the past week, I finished one paper and started another, started reading Scrolling Forward by David M. Levy for a class, got an A on a test, and learned about Carl Rogers and client-centered therapy. All of this has left with very little time for reading on my own. I am almost finished with One People, Two Worlds and read a bit more of Aristotle's Politics last night, but I don't have anything that is ready to be blogged about at this point. So I thought I would blog a bit about one of my favorite topics: Reese's Cups. (I apologize to those of you who keep cholov yisrael.) Last semester, my professor asked us for examples of great ideas throughout history. He was looking for things like freedom, justice, virtue. The first idea that came out of my mouth was Reese's Cups. My professor was taken back a bit, he challenged me as to the greatness of the Reese's Cup, but I had a good following from several of the other students who felt strongly about the greatness of the combination of peanut butter and chocolate also. Ok, I know I am being a bit silly, but the fact is that a little bit of peanut butter covered with chocolate and wrapped in gold foil can improve my mood tremendously. The mixture of salt and sweet is just what I need on certain days. Scientists can say that chocolate has whatever in it that makes us feel happy, maybe it is the protein in the peanut butter, I don't know. What I do know is Mr. Reese was a really brilliant guy. There are other things that make me happy - an e-mail from an old friend who I haven't from in a while, someone saying something nice to me when I am down, working really hard on something and knowing that I have done a good job. I am not saying that Reese's Cups are the secret to world peace or anything like that. But the truth is, I can think of little else that can make me feel so much better without having to depend on any other person. I don't use this strategy so often, because there are drawbacks to Reese's Cups - they do tend to embody more calories than I am willing to ingest on a normal day. But for one of those days when I wake up and the sky is gray and I feel ugly and down and something is just off, a little Reese's Cup goes a ridiculously long way to making me feel better. And I don't think there are many things out there that have that same power. So to me, the Reese's Cup is one of the greatest ideas out there.