You can't connect the "diabetes dots" until you look backward. Allow me to explain.
The other day I took my usual walk from my apartment about 40 minutes away to do some specialty grocery shopping. While I typically follow the same route, this time I walked down a different street: the lovely fall foliage was beckoning me. Half-way down the block I realized this change would cost me walking a few extra blocks and I immediately thought, darn, I wish I hadn't done that.
A few minutes later, however, I saw looming down this new street, a Key Food supermarket. Key Food is the only supermarket chain in my area that carries Dreamfields pasta, my favorite new incredibly low-carb pasta (most of its carbs never get digested.) Just two days earlier I had been searching for it in the Key Food nearer my house but they were entirely out of stock, and I was sorely disappointed. Yet now, choosing a new route, I was delighted with my serendipitous find. I walked into the store and straight to the pasta aisle to discover shelves full with Dreamfields pasta. By making what looked initially like a mistake--taking the "wrong" street--I actually found something I'd been searching for and was benefitted.
I thought immediately of Steve Jobs' commencement address to Stanford University graduates in 2005. He said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. You have to trust that the dots (what you do now) will somehow connect in your future." Jobs was referring to his dropping out of college which led him to drop in on some calligraphy courses which ten years later came into play designing the Mac's graphics and applications. Sure, a box of pasta may not be life-changing, but something good may be before you because you took a "wrong" turn, so take a look rather than cursing where you are.
So, is there a bigger point here than being able to enjoy my favorite penne in olive oil tonight? Sure there is. Drum roll please: You've got diabetes, somehow your body took a wrong turn and this is where you are. Now what are you going to do about it? Curse the fact that you have diabetes or look up and see what advantage or new opportunity might be in front of you now because of it. I see diabetes' gifts everyday: I'm thinner, fitter, healthier, eat better, get more exercise than I ever would had my body not taken that "wrong" diabetes turn thirty-seven years ago.