It is already January 3, 2021, and time is just flying by.  Right.  Having the New Year fall on a Friday made this seem like an extra long weekend.  I love that feeling, that I don’t have to go to my desk to work but can just do anything I desire.  That feeling of having the world at your feet is a fearful one, don’t you think?  Like, we have all of the possibilities at our finger tips so why don’t we just extend the reach a bit more?  Are we afraid that our hands will be cut off, or….are we afraid that we’ll reach that last bit that tortured us only to find that the work was not worth the effort?

I think the latter thought is more common.  Sadly, we fail to see the journey for the wonderful ups and downs of experience of the end was not our expectation.  I see this on Chopped which is a cooking competition on the Food Network channel.  As a person who has a love/hate relationship with cooking, I really enjoy watching the show because of the obscure ingredients and comments on flavors.  During the Pandemic, I’ve been doing a really bang up job of cooking all of our meals.  Not a self-boast, just reiterating a comment.  I’ve been doing my cooking in a toaster oven because our oven broke before the Pandemic and we could not decide what to buy without remodeling our entire kitchen.  (Believe you me, the kitchen does need a facelift.) So, I’ve been using the stove top for that type of cooking…and a toaster oven for baking.  We are on the second one, having about used up the prior toaster oven.  I’m using a Breville now – hands down, the best toaster oven we could find.  The cooking in a toaster oven for ten months now wasn’t anything I even thought of…until I really looked back and saw the accomplishment.  The end – or the cooked product – was not the joy but that I could make some things so delicious through my Breville was amazing to me.  The journey, then, WAS the experience, not the perfectly cooked Christmas roast.  (OMG! It was amazing with a new herbal rub, too!)  With Chopped, I enjoy watching those who did not move on to the next round.  (Notice how I didn’t say lost here?  That is key.) The reactions are so varied that they say a lot about the person.  One man discussed how this just wasn’t his time to win but he enjoyed cooking for the top chefs and how meeting new people and, especially, these captains of his industry, was so exciting.  His enjoyment of the time spent in the Chopped Kitchen was not minimalized by the result of coming in second runner up.  Contrast this to a more recent episode where the chef eliminated in the first round discussed how lousy he was.  Hey, Buddy, YOU WERE ON CHOPPED!  You met some really great – possible – connections to build a future!  Did you fail to see that your losing was just a random result?  So, you determine how well you did by some peoples’ opinions and that is all she wrote?

We are all winning and losing each day.  It is the grace of how we handle the victory and defeat which then determines the next adventure.  Even in winning the competition, there must be humility and grace.  There is a respect we must have for those brave enough to enter the competion, show up, and do their best.  This is true in life, too.  If this subject interests you, YouTube has a whole world of discussion in this area of self-help.  One of my favorites is Eckhart Tolle, and you’ll find an interesting discussion from him HERE.  Many times, we may just see the railing and believe that is all there is.  Don’t be afraid to ask for a box to stand on so that you can see the view.  Enjoy and make it a good day, without expectations of how things should be.