French toast and self doubt

This morning, as I was making my daughter breakfast before seeing her off to school, I started to doubt myself as a parent. All of these questions and doubts started to creep in. 

Am I doing this right? What if I get it wrong? Is this food healthy enough for her? Is she getting enough protein so she will get stronger? Is she getting enough carbs for energy? Is she getting too many carbs for the amount of exercise she does? Is she getting too many calories? Or too few?

All of these thoughts were racing through my mind at 6:30am while I was making my daughter french toast and an omelette. The french toast was something my wife had prepped in the refrigerator from leftover bagels we picked up on a recent trip to New Jersey to visit family, and the omelette was just a plain egg omelette.

Then, the thought came to me, “Junk food was basically it’s own food group when you were a kid and you are worried about your daughter’s macronutrients. You are probably doing okay by her.” Standing there in the kitchen by myself, I audibly chuckled.

Life can be extremely serious at times, but there is no reason to make it unnecessarily serious when it need not be. French toast and an omelette is a pretty darn good breakfast. It’s tasty, relatively healthy, and it’s mostly real food.

Yes, macronutrients are important. Of course, whole foods are better than processed foods. But also, we do the best we can with what we have to work with. Life is hard enough without beating myself up unnecessarily for french toast and eggs. 

Get to work

Make your creative work easy to do. Not that creative work is easy, but make it easy to access. Reduce the friction that keeps you from doing it. Take away as many excuses as you can before you even start so that starting is easy. 

Put your creative time on your calendar. Block it off. Do it at the same time every day. Never double-book during your creative time. Give yourself a quiet space to work. Have your commonly used tools ready and available so that all you need to do is to pick them up. Tune out distractions or better yet, turn them off altogether. 

Whatever you need to do in order to make it easy to do your creative work, do it. Every little thing adds up. Remove all of the obstacles in your path until it is just you and your work. Now the easy part is done. The hard part is actually doing the work. 

Now that you have no excuses, the only thing standing between you and your art is you. When you have removed all external resistance and you are finally standing face-to-face with your work, and you still don’t want to, don’t know how to, or can’t get started, you have just met the real problem. 

Get over yourself and get to work. 

Promises to yourself

Do your best to keep your promises to yourself. Most people will never know whether you do or don’t, but you will know. Be honest with yourself and follow through on the things you tell yourself you are going to do.

Decide the kind of person you want to be and take the actions that that person would take. This is what the phrase “discipline equals freedom” means. Be the person you want to be by doing what that person would do.

This may mean going to bed at a certain hour, waking up at a specific time, or eating healthier and working out regularly. Maybe you are a writer and you are trying to develop a writing routine. Or perhaps you are dedicated to quitting some bad habit you have.

Whatever it is, be honest with yourself about the actions you want to take and then hold yourself accountable for that decision. No one has to know besides you what kind of promises you make to yourself, but you will know. You wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who constantly lies about what he or she is going to do. Don’t tolerate broken promises from yourself either.

I have more time

A funny thing happened when I lost access to my Netflix account. I decided to do nothing about it to see if I would really miss it. While there have been moments late in the evening when I am restlessly looking for something to do besides what I should be doing, which is sleeping, for the most part I haven’t noticed. I haven’t missed it.

More importantly, however, I have had more time. I have had more to work on things that I’ve been putting off, things that matter. I’m writing more, doing more creative projects, and having more ideas. I feel more open and receptive to what I’m called to do from, as opposed to feeling like my attention is being pulled toward some distraction.

While there are movies and series I enjoy watching, the truth is that I’ve lived long enough to remember a time before Netflix, or streaming services in general, and I kind of yearn for it. I miss being bored. I miss not having immediate access to so many options and having to find something to do. I miss doing nothing, having no distractions, and enjoying the quiet.

As I write, I’m reminded that this isn’t about Netflix. Netflix is a service, a symptom. I could be talking about YouTube, Facebook, or Disney+.

This is about distractions and what we do or who we are when we don’t have them. It’s about is finding ways to create more space and openness in our lives so that we have the energy and attention for that which truly matters to us.

When I think about the things I want to accomplish and experience in this life, binge-watching Black Sails or re-watchingThe Matrix for the hundredth time is not high on that list. But distraction is more convenient and more comfortable than doing work that matters because work that matters means that I might fail.

Take your time

My daughter wanted to make a video to prove to a skeptical cousin that she could solve a Rubiks Cube. I told her the video had to be under two minutes long in order for me to be able to send it.

Until that moment, her fastest time solving her Rubiks Cube was two and a half minutes, but she was up for the challenge. She asked me mix up the puzzle and to set a timer, and then she started solving it.

But a strange thing happened. It was taking her longer to solve it than normal. Frustrated, she said, “The more I worry about my speed, the more mistakes I make.”

That was the problem. Instead of trying to solve the puzzle well, she was trying to solve it quickly. This was causing her to make mistakes she normally would not make.

I began thinking about my experience with jiu-jitsu. While it’s fun to roll (sparring for submissions) at a fast pace and a high intensity, this type of training tends to mask mistakes and it makes it very difficult to notice or fix them in real time. Conversely, rolling slowly, with a focus on clean, precise movements and transitions, allows for more intelligent decisions in the moment and this, somewhat surprisingly, helps to develop skills more quickly.

With this in mind, I told her to slow down and to focus on precision instead of speed. There’s a saying I told her, “‘Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,’ because it takes more time to fix the mistakes you make from rushing than it does to take your time and not make those mistakes.”

She asked me to scramble her Rubiks Cube again and to set a timer. She began solving the puzzle, this time more slowly, with a focus on precision instead of speed. When she announced that she was done, I stopped the clock. To both of our amazement, she had just beaten her best time by nearly forty seconds, and she did it by taking her time.

Sound like yourself

My favorite bands don’t sound like anyone else. They sound like themselves. 

The music I like the most, the first time I heard it, I wasn’t so sure. Nothing in my previous experience had prepared me for it. It was unusual, somewhat foreign, and sometimes even quite jarring. 

Sometimes it took me a while to settle into it, to get comfortable with it, and to hear the beauty and the truth in it. 

That’s the thing about new ideas. In the beginning, they have no audience. They can’t have an audience because they are new. They haven’t been heard or experienced before. 

It’s difficult to relate to new ideas. Something about them feels off. They make us uncomfortable. But if they are true and we give them a chance, they will change us. 

Music changed me. A thousand times over, it turned my inner life upside down and transformed me into someone new, someone I would and could never be if I hadn’t experienced it. 

I can say the same about books, paintings, films, poems, and even certain meals. 

When someone creates something, and they do so with love, truth, and conviction, it is transformative. It has the power to change the lives of those who experience it.

This is why it is so important to share your art. Even if it is nothing special to you, if it comes from your heart, if you mean it, and it is uniquely your own, you never know who will be moved by it. 

Remember, the best music doesn’t sound like something else. It sounds like itself, like the person or people who created it. For this reason, the best art is a courageous act. 

So act bravely and make art that sounds like you. We may not understand it at first, but we may come to thank you for it later. 

Your creative voice

The only way to find your creative voice is to use it. If you want to be a better writer, write more. If you want to be a better painter, paint more. If you want to be a better chef, cook more. 

But you can’t stop there. You have to share your work. Put it in the world. Let people interact with it. There is only so much you can do to refine your creative skills in isolation. 

Art needs to be seen, heard, and felt. It needs to be experienced. 

In order for you to find your creative voice, your voice must be heard by others. 

Make your art. Share your art. Put it into the world and see what comes back. Do this over and over again and you will find that you are changed. 

You begin to be more like yourself. Your work starts to feel more like your own. You discover that what you have to say is worth saying and that you are the only one uniquely qualified to say what you have to say in the way that only you can say it. 

If you want to find your creative voice, you will have to be brave. You will have to risk being ignored, misheard, or misunderstood, and you will have to speak up anyway. Speak up through your art. Say what you have to say loudly and persistently enough that you cannot be ignored. 

Write anyway

Sometimes writing is a pleasant experience. Other times, it is quite painful. Tonight, for me, it is painful. 

The words are simply not coming. I’m grasping for ideas, but they continue to elude me. 

I’m clawing around in the dark for a lifeline, some relief, some inspiration, but all my desperate fingers can find are the empty corners of an empty room where ideas used to live.

And I know they are just words, but they are more than that. When they come to me, I am comforted as if by a dear friend. In their absence, however, I feel lost, frightened, and alone. 

Tonight, I feel as though I have been abandoned. I have nothing to say and no one to say it to. In this moment, this is all I have to offer, that I write anyway. 

Thinking about swimming

I’ve been thinking a lot about swimming lately. My sister-in-law’s pool just opened for the season and both my daughter and I love to swim. In fact, I don’t remember a time when I was didn’t love being in or around the water. And like me, my daughter has been attracted to the water since she could walk. 

The first time we took her to the ocean, when she was still in diapers, my daughter tried to run straight into the water with no fear or hesitation. We would pull her back and, as soon as we let her go, she would try to run back in. It was like a scene straight out of Moana (an amazing movie, by the way). 

Now that the pool is open, she wants to go swimming every chance she gets. The only problem is that the water is really, really cold. That doesn’t stop her though. She eases her way in and will swim until we make her get out. It has, however, stopped me from joining her. 

The reason I’ve been thinking a lot about swimming lately is because I’ve been finding myself avoiding going in with her because the water is too cold. She all but begs me to join her, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I have a mental block that keeps me from taking the plunge, as it were. But this was not always the case. 

I used to have no fear nor hesitation about swimming whatsoever. Regardless of the temperature, if I was allowed in, I was jumping in. I swam in lakes, rivers, pools, and the ocean, and I didn’t care how cold it was. I was just happy to be in the water. 

So what changed? That’s what I’ve been pondering. What is it about getting older that makes us more hesitant, more reluctant, that keeps us from jumping in head or feet first, and that prevents us from simply enjoying ourselves? Why am I resistant to the cold water when I used to just be grateful to be able to swim? This may all seem silly, but there is something that happens to us as we get older that I’m just not okay with. 

In spite of my daughter’s pleading and her subsequent disappointment, I didn’t go swimming with her and, quite frankly, I’m bothered by that. I don’t want to be the kind of parent who says, “No,” to my child when she wants me to join her in the pool simply because I may be uncomfortable. I don’t want to be the kind of parent who avoids treats spending time with my child as an inconvenience. 

Beyond that, I don’t want to be the kind of person who never truly lives. Yeah, I know, it’s just a pool, but for whatever reason, it feels like more than that to me. My reluctance to jump in feels like a sign that I’ve taken this growing up thing too far, that I’ve mistaken being uptight, avoiding discomfort, and being unable to enjoy the moment as a sign of maturity. Growing up is for old people and I’d rather live. 

Chili humility

Recently, my wife took her parents to the Cambodian Buddhist Temple for a fundraiser. At the event, local Cambodian and Thai food vendors set up to raise money to donate to the temple through food sales. My wife came back with some of my favorite foods, including green papaya salad, chicken wings stuffed with Cambodian herbs, spices, and chopped peanuts, and fried bananas, which I really appreciated after a long day running and participating in a jiu-jitsu scrimmage for grapplers over forty. 

My mother-in-law brought home some produce, including a small, green bitter eggplant (turkey berry) that is used in a variety of Cambodian and Thai dishes, but she specifically uses it in one of my favorite Cambodian dishes, prahok ling. Prahok ling is essentially ground pork, fermented fish paste (prahok), herbs and spices (kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, turmeric, etc), bird’s eye chilis, and turkey berries all stir-fried together. 

The dish is served with jasmine rice, raw vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, and green beans, and lime wedges. The prahok ling is either eaten over the rice with the veggies as an accompaniment, or the veggies are used to scoop up the prahok ling and it is all eaten together. The lime is there in case someone wants to add some acid to the dish, which I always do because I like the salty, spicy, bitter, and sour combination. 

Before we started eating, my mother-in-law warned me that there were whole bird’s eye chilis in the dish. At first, I ate around them, but then I got brave and I took a bite with a piece of chili in it. It was delicious and not too spicy. I finished what I had with the remainder of the chili and I decided to have some more. 

This time, bravery turning into arrogance, I took a couple of chilis into my bowl. I chopped the chilis up with my spoon, mixed them around in the prahok ling, squeezed some lime on it, and started eating. After my first couple of bites, I realized that something was very different. These chilis were not like the last one. My mouth was on fire and I could feel my belly starting to get warm. 

I told wife that I think I made a mistake and everyone started laughing. They know, and I know but had forgotten in a state of prideful ignorance and hunger, that not all bird’s eye chilis are created equal. Even in the same batch, they can range from a pleasant, fruity heat to regretfully spicy. I had just eaten the spectrum and now I needed to reevaluate my situation. 

Humbled and happy to give everyone a reason to laugh, I began separating the chilis from the rest of my food and enjoyed the remainder of my meal. It was not only delicious, but it was also very nice to have a sit-down, home-cooked meal with my wife, daughter, and in-laws. These occasions used to be an everyday occurrence for us because we all lived together for many years, but now that we live apart, it is more rare, and so we appreciate it when it happens. A temporarily burnt mouth and bruised ego are a small price to pay for delicious food and good company.