This past Saturday I had a really fun time at the grocery store checkout counter. The checkout person was especially engaging and I ended up telling her a story about my cooking ‘expertise’. On a side note, it was wonderful to have a spontaneous and fun conversation with someone that I didn’t know…I didn’t realize how much I missed that.
Once upon a time, I was a young teenaged cook (at home) and decided that I was going to make spaghetti sauce for the family all by myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I had the basic ingredients right: tomato sauce and lots of italian sausage. I had watched my mom make great sauce multiple times and was highly confident that I could handle the entire process. Got the sausage fried up, threw some mushrooms and tomato sauce in the pot and then realized I need to add some #spices.
One problem: I had never used spices in cooking before and couldn’t remember what my Mom used when she made the wonderful concoction before. Nothing to do but investigate so off to the spice shelf I went!
Holy moly! There were all kinds of bottles of stuff in there. Many of them I had never heard of (cardamon anyone?!?) and I began to panic…up until I saw the one jar that ruled them all (I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan btw): Allspice!
This made so much more sense to my teenage brain at the time. Allspice, the one spice to use! There was no need to figure out what else to use…I would just use this. Note: this was before the internet and google searching. I loaded up the sauce with the Allspice (I think I must have used 6-7 teaspoons of it and off we were to simmering and stirring.
It smelled a little different than when Mom made it, but, I reasoned to myself that it was going to be great. I also, being inexperienced, hadn’t learned to taste my cooking as I cooked…
Long story short: I delivered my masterpiece to the table beaming with pride and watched my Mom take the first bite. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good result. She almost spit it out (that she managed to choke it down says more about her courage and resilience than my cooking at the time) and then asked me what I had put in the sauce to make it taste like that.
I explained, confused after trying my own bite to horrible result, that I had used Allspice as that made sense to me from the label. I am happy to report that the seizure of laughing that ensued from Mom and my sister didn’t appear to result in any permanent damage seeing as they didn’t appear to breathe for 20-30 minutes as they laughed madly.
What is the purpose of this post other than to share some hilarious fun from youth?
Too many of you are looking for the one #spice to allow you to have a great and successful life.
Living a life of purpose and based upon your values, is very much like making a really, really good batch of spaghetti sauce. You need to layer in the different flavors, think about how each ingredient will enhance the overall result and, most especially, don’t take any shortcuts. You can’t buy with ‘1 Click’ from Amazon a life that will represent the true expression of your particular and unique humanity.
Here is where to start:
- What is most essential to you?
- What is stopping you from living your life intentionally towards what is most essential to you?
- What would your life be like if you removed that opposition?
- What small step, each and every day, can you do that will allow you to reduce that opposition?
I hope you enjoyed the story, didn’t spill too much coffee and/or tea and that you have thought about what kind of life you are cooking up for yourself. Be intentional, be values based and execute with peace that the path based upon those will be worth traveling upon even if you don’t reach the exact goal you envision.
Comment below, send me an email at mike@valuesbasedmindset.com or a private message.
#behuman #valuesbasedmindset #thesauceistheboss
All the best,
Mike