Even before she explained, I knew exactly what she meant. She wasn’t depressed. She wasn’t upset. She wasn’t scared out of her wits. Nothing awful had happened. In fact, nothing was really very different than a day or two before. In fact it was partly that fact—that nothing much was different from a day or two or three before—that was the problem.
I knew the feeling all too well. It was that loss of momentum after a great start out of the gate. It was the plateau that plagues weight lifters after several weeks or months of pumping the same iron. It was the proverbial slump.
And even though in this case, it was someone else’s slump for a change, I still found myself wondering about the phenomenon that was more familiar to me than I would have liked. I wondered, specifically, if it was possible to skip the slump, and maintain that sweet momentum toward some sought after dream. I asked The Shower Team, is it possible to bypass the blahs?
Sometimes the specificity of your focus serves you well, and sometimes it just slows you down. The rapid pace of your physical experience has created a kind of microwave mentality that sometimes trips you up in the sense that you have come to expect all your dishes to cook up in seconds.
So what often happens is, you launch a sweet, sassy, spicy kick of a new desire and you feel the excitement and the energy of that idea flowing through you . . . and you begin to imagine how good it’s going to be . . . how great it will taste when it’s done and how proud you will feel to have been the creator of it . . . and you start gathering the ingredients and mixing them up and enjoying the process of putting your creation together. And then you pop it in the oven to bake, knowing that it could take a half hour or an hour or longer . . . in some cases your concoction could need to simmer over a low flame for quite some time . . .
While the savvier chefs among you recognize this process for the perfection that it is, and will busy themselves with other dishes as the main dish is cooking, what many of you end up doing is sitting down and staring at the oven and staring at your watch and complaining about how long it’s taking. . . “What’s the matter with this thing?” you will ask . . . or “What did I do wrong that it’s taking this long?” or “Well this cooking business must just be a big crock because I can’t tell anything is happening in there . . .”
So what you call “the blahs” we would call cook time. What you would call a loss of momentum or a slump, we would call the perfect timing of the process for creating the best version of what you desire. . . and where you may sit there frowning at the dish that’s not done yet or the oven that’s not working faster, we would encourage you to turn your attention to the side dishes . . . or the appetizers . . . or the dessert . . . to any of the unlimited other projects you could be planning or preparing or mixing in your fully equipped, fully stocked kitchen.
Is it possible to “bypass the blahs” you ask? And we say, “Sure!” Just limit yourself to tiny, quick and easy dishes that you can throw together in no time. Set the standards for your desires lower . . . take on smaller, easier creations and you will get quicker and easier results . . . or at least, that is the belief you hold: that small or simple dishes come together quickly, whereas bigger or more complex recipes take more time and effort . . .
The belief that makes this seem the case is your belief—you practicing that thought. And in this as in any belief you hold, the choice is yours to be a short order cook or a gourmet. And you can be perfect happy with either choice as long as you are understanding what either of them needs to understand in order to enjoy what they do.
So if your pot is just taking way too long to come to a boil . . . consider a smaller pot and a less ambitious creation . . . or get up from your impatient post in front of the stove or oven and notice all the other sorts of fun you could be having in the kitchen as your culinary masterpiece continues to cook to perfection!
Sometimes their analogies are clearly meant to mock me (They know I’m not much use in the kitchen). But I’ve observed good cooks in action and not once have I seen any of them curse the cake for taking so long to brown or swear at the soup that still clearly needs more time over the flame.
This could explain why I’m such a whiz at scrambled eggs. It could also serve to remind me that sometimes wonderful things are worth waiting for—and that while I’m waiting for something wonderful, I could be planning something else equally wonderful. Or—I could just quietly enjoy my scrambled eggs and leave the soufflés to more patient and proficient chefs.
Either way, it beats sitting around the kitchen, listlessly lamenting the fact that I don’t know how to effectively nuke a pot roast. It leaves me a little less concerned about those blahs. It also leaves me a little hungry—and hopefully, a little closer to being complete
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