Is it just me, or are the persimmons much bigger this year? Even after drying them in the oven for three days, they haven’t shrunk enough to fit into the dehydrator. Will our electricity bill bankrupt us this year? How many more days of drying in the oven will it take to get them small enough to fit?

I mentioned this to my Vietnam born and bred husband who, as usual, had an instant, outside the box solution to the problem. I say unusual because it didn’t fit my expectations of what the solution would be. I like my hachiya dried persimmons whole. The best variety is one I hang on a screen for a month. The sugars from inside the fruit eventually come to the surface, powdering the delicacies with a fine white dust. But, that takes too much time, so I succumbed a couple of years ago to drying them first in the oven at a warm setting and then transferring them to a dehydrator after they were small enough to fit. They don’t retain the lovely orange color, and are brown instead, but they still taste fantastic. However, THIS YEAR, even after three days in the oven, they still don’t fit.  How can I make the dehydrator shelves tall enough so the fruit will fit?

My husband told me to slice them in half. What?? I wanted him to tell me how to make the dehydrator fit the persimmons so they could retain their beautiful appearance. They’re supposed to be lovely pear shaped whole fruit in their finished state. Everybody knows that! No way am I going to mutilate my precious persimmons like that!!!

 …………alright. So that is how you innovated the banana dehydrating process in Vietnam to drastically shorten the drying time of your millions of bananas each year. And they tasted sweeter, to boot.  Well, maybe it’s worth considering.

Change is never easy. We want to hang on to the old way of doing things, even if it wasn’t working, because it is familiar. And there is a sort of twisted comfort in that. But that just leads to continued failure and frustration. The tipping point comes when the frustration becomes so great, that change to a potentially more ideal situation becomes enticing.

We are now at the point of letting go of the old and entertaining the new.

Wow, the persimmons could be done in half the time, AND taste better, too! We’ll be able to pay our electricity bill this month. I can make that pot roast for dinner tonight, after all! And all I need to do is get those persimmons out of the oven and start slicing.

Are there any monster persimmons in your life? Are you tired of trying to fit them in to the dehydrator of tradition? Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the old way of doing/thinking    about   things/yourself. Time to mourn it’s passing, and the passing of it’s coexisting frustrations, and begin the transition to a new way/outlook. Be open to suggestions from others. They might come when you least expect it. Or from yourself, as you muse about your circumstance during a coaching session, or otherwise. Give yourself time and opportunity to consider the possibilities and rewards of change. Then, after weighing the pros and cons of change, take a deep breath and move forward to a better way ;)