This came through the mail the other day. I thought, “Wow! They have no idea who they’re sending this to…”
For one thing, we don’t own a TV….
My post on embarrassment struck a chord with a few of you. I hope it helps to know you’re not alone in your struggles.
And I hope that you fully understand that most of the time, your embarrassment comes about because you’re out there, trying something. And that’s what we’re going to celebrate this weekend. The attempt, no matter how it turns out, to learn something new, to express ourselves, to make the world around us a better place.
Yes, these attempts can go wildly awry. You can work and work and work and end up with, well, huh. Not quite what you were expecting. Sometimes you try to make dessert for four and end up with The Pavlovasaurus (eight eggs – how did it get so big???)
Or sometimes, it takes a really long time to see if you’re making any progress at all. Like adding pages to this blog. It’s going to take awhile to import all the Celebration Friday posts from my previous blogs. The interfaces aren’t compatible, so I’ve been spending my afternoons hacking code.
Has anyone noticed that I’ve added a page here? That’s what I thought.
But you get out there and you try. Yay, you! Reward yourself. Celebrate getting out there. Don’t worry so much about the outcome. Yes, of course, you want it to be great. We all do. And sometimes it will be. And sometimes it will make for a really funny story.
The motto of the Special Olympics is “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” They’re the words I live by, as I keep on trying.
So let me know, what have you been attempting this week? What should you be patting yourself on the back for? Please let me know so I can cheer you on!
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A comment by Margie (thanks, sweetie!) over on the HappySimple Facebook page helped to push me to start writing about food and sharing some of our favourite recipes. She wondered how we combine “chef in the house” with “simple”.
(And if you’ve not yet joined the community, please do. It’s where I go on weekends when I’m not posting here. A simple ‘like’ is all it takes.)
Yes, sometimes “chef in the house” leads to a three-day marathon of cooking. We call it entertainment. But most of the time it means simple, tasty, really healthy food.
So for this first cooking post, I’m going to share our favourite summertime pasta dish. It is, seriously, faster than any convenience food you can find and way better for you.
Put a pot of water on to boil. Then chop up a couple of fresh, ripe tomatoes. Put them in a bowl with salt, pepper, a splash of olive oil and fresh herbs to taste. Basil is brilliant for this, but you can use combinations of whatever you have fresh. I really like a combination of mint, chives and lovage.
If you don’t have fresh herbs, don’t worry about it. You’ll still have a tasty meal without them!
Leave all this to sit and combine flavours while you cook up your pasta. We usually throw extra in the pot so I can eat up the leftovers for lunch the next day.
When the pasta’s cooked, drain it, toss it with the tomato mixture and dinner’s ready!
I recommend eating this outdoors, with good crusty bread to sop up the juices and a bottle of good red wine.
Linger, if you possibly can….
Quick quiz: How many of you read that title and saw it as a warning or a threat?
Had I not known that I actually meant it as a reassurance, I probably would have, too. Let me explain.
So many times, I find myself wanting to get out there and do things – expand my blogs, meet new people, learn new skills. But it’s really hard, no, it’s impossible to do these new things without having moments of embarrassment. It’s embarrassing not to know what you’re doing. It’s embarrassing to make mistakes. And embarrassment? Well, it just really, really sucks, doesn’t it?
So, for far too much of the time, we let that hold us back. We don’t reach out to those new people, or sign up for that class at which we would be absolute beginners. We don’t do those things that might just get us closer to our dreams. Because we don’t want to suffer the wretched discomfort of embarrassment.
But here’s the thing, and here’s what my title really means. Embarrassment is just uncomfortable. It’s not fatal. And if you can learn to just weather it and leave it behind, it doesn’t even have to cause any long-term damage. It’s just embarrassment. It’s just a feeling.
How do I know this? Experience my friends, and plenty of it! I have pulled more boneheaded stunts than I will ever admit to in public. Made every mistake possible. Felt my cheeks flame and my stomach churn as a realized how dumb I’d made myself look. Just last week I took a huge misstep in the blog-building arena that made me look like a total over-eager amateur.
But I lived. And I learned. And I have quite a few experiences that I can look back on that I never would have had if I hadn’t taken a chance, hadn’t learned to keep going, to not let the embarrassment keep me from where I wanted to go.
I mean, you should have seen me last week, racing through the downtown with my camera, trying to get the perfect shot of the visiting marching band. Did I feel like an idiot? Of course I did! People were looking at me! And I’m not a professional photographer, I just have this little photo blog that not a lot of people know about. Did I let it stop me? Not this time and because of that, not next time, either.
I’m not advising that you just get out there and make an ass of yourself without doing any homework whatsoever. My homework for the various things I want to do is prodigious and on-going. I am saying don’t let “doing your homework” become code for “not doing”.
Because I also remember those times I did let my fear of embarrassment stop me. I regret those times. I remind myself of them when I hesitate and off I go. Because regret feels even worse than embarrassment.
Embarrassment is survivable. And the rewards for surviving it are huge.
Our recent heatwave has broken and the nights are cooling off. Huge. Relief.
If I go barefoot all day (and I usually do) by early evening, my toes get really chilly and the cold starts creeping upwards to my ankles, especially on nights we have a long, leisurely dinner on the deck.
And I know that a month or so from now I will find cold feet really tedious and misery inducing.
So why do they feel like such an utter luxury to me now?
You may notice some new buttons at the bottom of this post. WordPress added them so that it’ll be easier for you to share your favourite posts with your friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter, etc. They’ve even made them retroactive! Thanks so much WordPress!
And you know I will be eternally grateful to any of you who find it in your hearts to share what you find here.
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