Cookbooks are relevant. Trust me.
You look at a cookbook, you browse through the pages and see tons of tempting dishes that appeal to you. You dog ear the pages that interest you with full intentions to go back and make that dish. But you don’t. Each page you dog ear is a promise you make to yourself that you almost always break. It’s a conscious thing, too. You are fully aware that you more than likely will not make the sweet potato casserole with lemon zest dumplings. It’s just not going to happen. We think to ourselves, “This looks great! I’ll have these people over and make these things. It’ll be fantastic.” But do you? More than likely not. Do we truly WANT to carryout these plans, but life gets in the way OR do we know deep, deep down that the plan will never be reality the second we make it..yet we make it anyway.
Same goes for any plans really. We make them to break them. It’s our habit, it’s our hobby, but it’s truthfully become our lifestyle.
There’s a notion that there is so much time, time to spare even. If you really stop to think about it, time seems like an old friend. You’ve experienced a lot because of it, you’ve watched your family bloom with time, maybe time has healed you in some way or another. The point is, time is always there, but you won’t be. Putting off goals and plans and dreams is just another way of cheating yourself out of a quality life. Maybe it’s the little promises that we break that equal a quality life as well as time spent wisely. Perhaps we’re breaking the very thing that’s holding us together.
Each time we let one item slip through the cracks, we do not hesitate to find something new to fill it’s gap in our schedules. We are moving on to “big”, WAY BIGGER things. Constantly chasing our tails because, well, we can…and nobody told us not to. Every second of spare time we have gets violated and reformatted to take on a new responsibility and get sucked in to the vortex of obligation. We forget about what we’re sacrificing when we make those split second commitments. We lose sight of our little commitments and brush of our initial plans. Do we truly want to carryout these plans but life gets in the way OR do we know deep, deep down that the plan will never be reality?..yet we still make plans.
Perhaps mentally making these plans, or as I like to put it “little promises,” is a way for us to satisfy our desire to enjoy ourselves without actually doing so. We entertain a notion of a false fulfillment that holds us over only momentarily until our brain passes it off along with the other whims that flash through. We think we’re being strategic with creating events/goals/dreams, but maybe we’re creating a void instead because “We’ll get back to it”. It’s like pre-heating the oven without ever putting the chicken in. You won’t be able to enjoy what you don’t put energy in to. We are enabling ourselves to be less accountable…plus you’re wasting a perfectly good chicken. Regardless of it being a meringue pie recipe or telling yourself you’ll go to the gym more, we make checklists that fall short EVERY TIME.
It’s the little things that matter, and often times, it’s the little things that get shrugged off. People weren’t kidding when they said the devil is in the details because it most certainly is. Deviled eggs without paprika are just boiled eggs that have been re-purposed. The little hint of paprika that is called for in the recipe (plan) makes all the difference. Those little plans, little details, little whatevers are what we need most. They might be small, but we can’t lose sight of them.
If we keep looking ahead at the bigger picture we’ll miss what’s right in front of us. Don’t allow yourself to be left with check-less checklists of what you hoped to accomplish in your lifetime. Make your life count. Give those little things a bigger time slot, and add a little spice.
Mia Kagianas a DJ at KSSU
Music Review: Norah Jones “Little Broken Hearts”
