Author: alearningaday

I had the opportunity to listen to humanitarian chef Jose Andres recently. Chef Andres started his talk with a beautiful story about learning to cook from his dad.

Every Sunday, his dad used to invite a whole host of people from the village for lunch. His dad loved cooking and his son was his de-facto assistant. Despite his eagerness to learn how to cook the paella, his father used to always put him on fire duty. This meant going to the forest, finding logs, and then making sure the fire was burning with the right intensity.

One day, his father explained why his obsession with the fire. He shared that everyone who was eager to learn how to cook paella jumped to trying to stir the paella or put ingredients into the pot. However, he believed that the most important part of cooking well was learning how to control the fire. Control the fire right and you’ll figure out the rest.

This was a wonderful lesson in cooking for an eager young cook. But, in retrospect, it turned out to be an important life lesson that stayed with him since.

Learn how to control your fire. The rest will follow.

Powerful.

“Charity should not be about redemption for the giver. It should be about liberation for the receiver.” | Jose Andres (originally by Robert Egger)

It resonated.

Getting out of our comfort zone isn’t a result of a big decision we make one day. It isn’t a trait some are born with.

Instead, it is simply a habit we develop. We start by doing small things to get out of our comfort zone – have an uncomfortable conversation or be more vulnerable than we’d have thought – and work our way up to bigger things.

We are what we repeatedly do.

“Yelling doesn’t get your point across, it only makes it louder.”

This made me chuckle. It is a lesson I’d do well to remember when I find myself in situations where I’m frustrated with my kids.

A good friend shared a few excerpts from an article in The Atlantic titled “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart.” His notes inspired a wonderful conversation on our friendship and reminded me that I should reflect on and write about this topic more as it is one that matters a lot to me. For now, here are the excerpts –

Back in the 1980s, the Oxford psychologists Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson wrote a seminal paper titled “The Rules of Friendship.” Its six takeaways are obvious, but what the hell, they’re worth restating: In the most stable friendships, people tend to stand up for each other in each other’s absence; trust and confide in each other; support each other emotionally; offer help if it’s required; try to make each other happy; and keep each other up-to-date on positive life developments.

The problem is that when it comes to friendship, we are ritual-deficient, nearly devoid of rites that force us together. Emily Langan, a Wheaton College professor of communication, argues that we need them. Friendship anniversaries. Regular road trips. Sunday-night phone calls, annual gatherings at the same rental house, whatever it takes. “We’re not in the habit of elevating the practices of friendship,” she says. “But they should be similar to what we do for other relationships.”

When I consider the people I know with the greatest talent for friendship, I realize that they do just this. They make contact a priority. They jump in their cars. They appear at regular intervals in my inbox. One told me she clicks open her address book every now and then just to check which friends she hasn’t seen in a while—and then immediately makes a date to get together.

“Philip made me feel that my best self was my real self,” he finally said. “I think that’s what happens when friendships succeed. The person is giving back to you the feelings you wish you could give to yourself. And seeing the person you wish to be in the world.” I’m not the sampler-making sort. But if I were, I’d sew these words onto one.

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Each of these is beautiful. But this idea – “The person is giving back to you the feelings you wish you could give to yourself. And seeing the person you wish to be in the world.” – is exquisitely put.

Here’s to more conversations about friendship.

We watched an episode of the cartoon “The Jetsons” with our kids the other day. It was one of the cartoons that used to show up on “Cartoon Network” growing up. And while I wasn’t a fan then, I’ve definitely watched a few episodes.

Even growing up in the 90s in India, the idea that we might travel in flying cars, have robots to clean our home, machines to cook, have flat-screen televisions, walk on conveyer belts, and talk to people over video (or “Facetime”) felt pretty far into the future. I can only imagine what it felt like when the cartoon first aired in 1962.

Our kids, on the other hand, have grown up with most of this technology. It didn’t blow their minds when they saw Jane Jetson just call her mom over video. They do it nearly every day.

Those 20 minutes were such a great reminder of the gifts we have in our lives. Even a hundred years ago, the technology we have today would have been beyond the realm of science fiction. Touch screen phones with cameras, the ability to talk to humans all around the world via the internet, machines that can play complex games and solve problems, vaccines that can be created by uploading a sequence into a computer – it’s all incredible.

And yet so easy to take for granted.

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” | Robert Frost

No point over thinking today. Best to keep plugging away.

A neat story emerged recently about Manchester United coach Erik Ten Hag. After a defeat in the first game, the team lost their second game in embarrassing fashion to Brentford (a relatively small team).

Brentford outfought United every step of the way. It also emerged that they collectively ran 13.8 kilometers more.

Ten Hag canceled the next day off for the team. Their punishment on the day? A 13.8 kilometer run on what turned out to be a hot day. The symbolism is beautiful.

But that’s not all. It turned out Ten Hag ran the entire 13.8 kms with the players himself.

And why wouldn’t he? He was in it with them after all.

A great leadership story.

I was attempting to put one of those stick-on number plate holders in front of our car a while back.

After spending a few seconds optimizing the alignment, I stuck it on. However, just as I did so, my hands tilted left. The number plate holder wasn’t perfectly horizontal as a result – there was a slight angle.

I stared at it realizing I had a choice to make. I could spend an hour or some money attempting to straighten it. Or I could let it go and just move on.

I chose the latter.

A few months later, I can confirm that I don’t notice the number plate holder or think about its imperfect angle since*.

Pick what you want to optimize. Let the rest go.

Works with number plate holders.

And life.

*When I did notice it today, I found myself appreciating the lesson the process of choosing not to fix the imperfection taught me. :-)

The college graduation ceremony is considered the moment a student stops being a student.

I think that sort of thinking is akin to expecting wisdom to accompany age.

In reality, graduation happens when a person (a) is a productive contributor to society and (b) stops competing with/comparing their lives with their cohort.

Many never graduate.