Normally on Sundays, we have brunch after church. We come home, make waffles or pancakes, and accompany them with eggs, bacon or both. It is a fun simple tradition we have been doing for around a year that makes meals on Sunday easy and saves us time and money.
Today I remembered that our strawberries had been sitting there for a week, and I already had tossed a moldy one. I didn't want them to go to waste. I took out a food slicer, washed the strawberries and sliced them to put them on top of the waffle, restaurant style. We didn't have and honestly didn't miss any whipping cream, but we for sure had syrup and honey (for me mainly) to drizzle all over. Let me tell you how it felt luxurious, a bit balanced, healthy, and even accomplishing; I had saved the strawberries and was able to add about a cup of fruit to my otherwise colorless meal.
Please do me the honor of following me on my train of thought around tackling new things.
This got me thinking: this feels great because it ticks a check on healthier meal, something I strive for. What is the definition of healthier? Many of us set that goal for our lives and equate it to salads, chicken breast, and no sweets. That is not healthy. First, it is not healthy for your soul and neither is it for your body. We need a balanced diet. What is that? Just thinking of balancing anything makes me want to quit before starting. Because I know that I am already balancing too much and I move like sludge when it comes to diving into a brand new topic, I have recognized that boiling it down to the basics is the best way to start.
Once again, what is healthier? While eating variety in every meal and leaning more to ingredients as they are naturally is my goal, the truth is that it is too much change for me. Three meals that I would have to modify each day, and I still I struggle with making meals, period. What can I do? Can I pick one thing to add? Sure can! An apple each day. Great! Once I feel somewhat used to that or get tired of apple, I can pick another fruit and maybe say, carrots each day. It can be raw or cooked. If that is too repetitive, I can say carrots and broccoli, alternated. If I follow through, that is about four items in my diet that are new staples.
With this process, I am adding instead of removing, and I am teaching my taste buds to learn to appreciate other flavors and textures. I might get creative and add it to meals like topping my waffles or oatmeal, but I don't have to. Eating them is enough.
Why am I talking about diet today? Because we tend to overcomplicate approaching something new, and freeze and turn around instead of going on a new adventure, one step at a time. We want to research, we want to validate the research, we want to interview people with experience, we want to sit down and plan to find out what the perfect way of doing it is, and how we can customize it so it can flow with our lives. So much work to take a first step!
Let's not let planning remove us from the real goal: doing it.
You don't have to be an expert. You don't have to be surrounded by experts. You don't have to follow a template. This is your own adventure. Starting is the hardest part, and it only takes one step. Yes, you might fail, but you can learn from your failure and get up and do it better next time. You won't learn anything from keeping your arms and legs crossed, because there is nothing new in the place you live in. You will only grow with change.
I still value planning and research, but I have come to realize how much my life has become preparation and so little has been living the moment. The moment will happen whether I prepared for it or not.
I have also realized that some of that planning and research can only become valuable once I have started moving forward. You don't know what you don't know, and you won't learn it all from a book or someone else's story. Your own experience will create intuition and wisdom for your next steps. I tend to believe that I need to be an expert to play the game or that only those that have been in it know it all. Negative. We are all trying to figure things out and even those in the later stage of life are still learning.
Time will continue to tick. Why don't I decide today to take that first step towards a more enjoyable life?
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