I learned to enjoy semi-sweet chocolate when I stayed at Nana’s (my maternal grandmother) house as a child. She always had a bowl of candy out on the endtable in the living room, and most times it was filled with those Hershey’s chocolate miniatures. For some reason, people seem to leave the semi-sweet “Special Dark” chocolates for last because it is perceived as less than desirable. I didn’t like the semi-sweet chocolate at first either, but when there’s the only thing left you can learn to like anything.

A lesson I learned: if you can learn to enjoy the things in life that are less than perfect, you can often find some sweetness (even if only semi-sweet) when most other people think that all of the good things are gone.