Cooking lesson

I cooked dinner today.  I didn't start the rice early enough so we had to wait a while, after everything else was ready, for the rice to finish cooking before we could start eating. 

I was going to use a large knife to cut the steak and, not wanting to dirty any extra knives, I used it to cut everything else as well.  I'm not so used to the large knife so everything ended up being cut more coarsely than usual -- the ginger, the celery, the carrots.  Whoops. 

Instead of cooking the steak first and then putting in the onions, I did it the other way around, onions first. 

When making the stir fry, I had the oil on pretty high when I put the meat in the pan, along with the marinade, causing a lot of hot splashiness.  Whoops.

In the end, the meal was fine.  And, with all the mistakes I made in the process, I got a great cooking lesson too.  Experience may not be one of the kindest teachers, but it is one of the best.

When gifts are for sale

In Canada, the blood donation system has always been deliberately separated from the market.  No one is paid to give blood and no one pays to get blood.  It's a gift.  Same is true for organ donation.

Visiting old people or sick people, offering emotional support and companionship also tend to fall into the gift economy.  This is what friends, family and neighbours do.  And they don't do it for payment.

When these types of gifts start being bought or sold in the market, they become cheapened -- even if their prices are not actually cheap.  The motivations to provide these gifts become clouded.  Intrinsic motivators -- a sense of duty, an attitude of generosity, love -- are crowded out by extrinsic considerations, such as money and time.

Pennies are counted.  Minutes are counted.  And the gift is lost.

Where are we going?

My friend has a three year old, who she pushes in the stroller when we go for our runs.  On Friday, as we were running, her daughter asked us, "Where are we going?".  Between gasping breaths, I tried to explain to her that we're not really going anywhere.  We're just running. 

Sometimes, it's really more about journey itself and how you traverse than it is about the final destination. 

The patience circle

Shaykh Muhammad Al-Shareef talks about a patience circle.  On the board, he draws a circle that contains all the things that we have patience for, like missing the bus, losing a pen, some things not going as planned, etc.  They're different for different people.  He represents all these as X's inside our patience circle.  Then, there are things that we have a difficult time being patient for.  These are X's outside our patience circle.  

From time to time, we will be tested with those things outside our patience circle. If we try really hard and are able to be patient with these things outside our patience circle, the patience circle grows -- so those X's that used to be outside are now inside.  Conversely, if we're not patient, the patience circle shrinks and even those things that used to be inside, may now fall outside the patience circle.

It depends who's asking

Sean Covey writes about a Relationship Bank Account in his advice to teens and their parents.  He writes about how, through your actions, you can make deposits that strengthen the relationship and withdrawals that weaken the relationship.  What constitutes a deposit or a withdrawal depends on each person's unique needs and expectations from the relationship.

I was thinking about this bank account analogy today with regards to the favours that our friends ask of us.  There are some people, who we'd do just about anything for if they asked us.  Beyond that, we're actually happy when they ask us to do things.  We're honored.  It's like they've got VIP status at our bank and they get bonus points for their transactions.

Conversely, there are people who don't have that status.  These are the random people we hardly know who make extraordinary requests.  When they make such requests, it's like they're trying to write a cheque for a sum that's greater than the balance in their account.  Not only will they not be able to cash that cheque, but the account will be hit with a stiff NSF fine as well.

Positive social side effects

I'm a joiner.  I've always liked to join clubs and groups and organizations.  I like the group thing.  I like the team thing.  I like being part of a project.  I like going out and doing things.  And with a group of like-minded individuals, you can do just about anything.

One of the best things about these group activities is the positive social side effect.  We may meet for the purpose of giving food to the homeless, hosting a community lunch, organizing activities for children or improving our public speaking, but that's not all we get out of our meetings.  We get to talk to each other, listen to each other, learn from each other. 

From these seeds, I have seen friendships sprout and grow well beyond the setting in which they were planted.  That's the part I love.

More than we are

Sometimes, circumstances require us to be more than we are.  Stronger, braver and wiser than we know ourselves to be.  We can retreat, citing our inadequacy.  Or we can step forward, recognizing the need.  We can shrink into the shell of what we know ourselves to be.  Or grow to become more than we are.