Oatmeal with peanut butter and Tang

I was on a backpacking trip with my brother in NorCal circa 1982 and we had packed a number of hi energy foods in our kit. For breakfast one morning we decided to try adding peanut butter and Tang to our oatmeal. It was the best thing ever. So good. We proceeded to have that for breakfast for the remaining two mornings and loved it. After being home for a few days and having the usual foods for our meals, the desire arose to have that wonderful breakfast we discovered while backpacking! A pot of oatmeal was cooked up. Peanut butter and Tang were added. We sat down and each started in...and that's about as far as we got. It was pretty awful. Truly something to be eaten only in the right circumstances.
And so it can be with people. In good times it is easy to find fault with others because my well-being doesn't depend on them. But when the chips are down and there is someone who has something that I need, I find myself thinking that they aren't so bad. In fact, this person is pretty neat. Often, once I have allowed the door to open for this person, I find that they are far better than I had thought. Sometimes a first impression can cause me to judge and close the door for further familiarity. Perhaps these times of struggle are opportunities to re-examine our relationships and to move our focus away from a person's faults and concentrate it on their strengths. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a selfish bastard who is trying to justify being friendly to people to get things from them...or not.