This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
Julia Child once said, “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude”.
The older I get, the more I believe that those who want to be survivors and winners in the great and complicated game of life, need to develop this kind of attitude. I know that’s easier said than done if it’s either not your true nature, or if your experiences in life have taught you to worry incessantly, not take chances, and to take things very seriously all the time. Believe me, I know that, because I was raised by very loving parents, but they were people who pretty much felt that life was often out to get them, and was an endless series of problems and troubles. My father did enjoy life for the most part, which was, thankfully, a balance to that attitude and I am grateful I had his example in that respect. While he worried a lot and had many phobias and issues from childhood that kept him stuck,and sometimes rendered him afraid of new things, he also had a quick wit, appreciated and understood the value of humor, and loved and revered the beauty around him that nature offers us.
As it does for most of us, life “keeps on happening” in a way that sometimes makes me wonder when my family and I will get some needed respite. Perhaps there are no breaks from trials and tribulations, and perhaps my lesson is to double up efforts to breathe in and savor each and every happy thing that comes my way, and to keep that in the front of my consciousness. Perhaps my lesson is to create the breaks from life’s troubles on my own. I have learned the hard way, to refuse to let my troubles knock me down. I somehow manage to continue to hope for and expect improvements and to keep on trying new things. In other words, I have learned to keep on living and experiencing.
When one crappy thing after another pushes us down like some big bully, it feels pretty hard to get back up, to brush the sand from our eyes and to figure out how to fight back without putting more pain and negative energy out there into the world. It feels pretty scary to set out into unexplored and untried territory and to muster up new confidence. It’s hard not to retreat and lick our wounds, and not to say to ourselves, “What’s the use? Nothing ever seems to go right for me anyway. I will only fail.” It’s especially hard and sometimes feels downright impossible, to believe that anything is going to change, that the awful thing that just happened, or the feelings of sadness and hopelessness that are weighing us down at this moment will ever pass. It is hard at times to believe we will ever “get it right” if we have gotten it wrong enough times in a row, or if we have convinced ourselves that this is the truth.
On Saturday, I did something very stupid. It was careless and was probably due to the family-related stress I have been under lately. I am not going to detail my mishap here, but if you are dying of curiosity and needing to know will keep you up at night, do write me privately and I will share it. My stupidity is going to cost me money. For most of Saturday afternoon and parts of yesterday, after it happened, my stomach was tied up in knots. My old, familiar anxiety washed over me, relentlessly beating back my reason and my resolve to stay calm. I spent quite a few hours cloaked in disappointment with myself, in guilt and worry over the funds my momentary carelessness is likely to cost.
Before I knew it, the afternoon of intense worry and guilt had flown by (See how time flies when we’re having fun…and when we’re not!). I realized it was time to prepare supper and hadn’t a clue what to cook. I took a little pause from my worry to investigate what ingredients I had, since I was in no shape to head for the grocery store. I am not sure why, and perhaps it was a message for me, but my thoughts wandered to Julia Child. I am a pretty adventurous, experimental kind of cook. While I wasn’t planning to cook anything elaborate, when I do, I definitely have a “what-the-hell” attitude. I always deviate from recipes. I use ingredients that are not typically paired. I change things up. When I choose to use a recipe and become excited at the prospect of trying something new, I don’t get disappointed and give up because I find I am missing a key ingredient. I scour the fridge and cupboards and come up with a worthy substitute. When I make a cooking mistake, I usually find a way to repair my mistake and things come out fine. Or, I just don’t focus on, or mention the mistake. I serve up my creation as though the finished product was exactly the way I intended it to be. I never worry or agonize over my culinary process and pretty much have that “what-the-hell” attitude about cooking, anyway. I am not afraid of failure in cooking, of what might happen. I don’t agonize or berate myself over past mistakes.
I have decided then, that I need more practice in building my “what-the-hell” attitude about other things in life. I have been working for a couple of weeks now on conscious “under reacting”. Note that I didn’t use the words on not over reacting. I think there is a difference, and this seems to be a pretty good thing for me to practice. This past weekend has shown me that I need to focus more on it. I am generally very good at handling or helping to handle other people’s crises and stress, (Aren’t most of us?) so why not work on making my own life easier too? I have a sign pasted on my office desktop phone that says UNDER REACT. I don’t want to become somebody I am not. I just want to build on my ability to have calmer, healthier responses to things life sends me. I believe I am normally an enthusiastic, and, I hope, an emotionally responsive person, so it takes some deliberate and conscious awareness to dial myself down a bit. I am going to make a couple of additional signs, colorful ones, that say,”FIND YOUR WHAT –THE- HELL ATTITUDE RIGHT NOW!“.. If I can pull out this attitude in the kitchen, along with my utensils and ingredients, then I can manage to access it more in other areas of living when I really need it.
How about you? How often do you throw caution to the winds, thumb your nose at defeat and fear and say, “What the hell?”
