Every choice you make, no matter how big or how small, takes you toward your goal or away from your goal. Consider that anything from use of time to your momentary mood can have the effect of helping or hindering the achievement of your objectives. Life is about making choices. At any moment we can completely change who we are, how we react to the situations and circumstances of our lives or what steps we take to create our own destiny. If your goal for the day is to complete several tasks, the choice to stay in bed an extra hour may make it difficult to get everything done. If your choice is to become a research scientist for NASA your choice to skip Calculus 101 could undermine your objectives. People who make wise choices are on top of their game. But not everyone finds it easy to make choices. Some people struggle with procrastination or indecision. Start out by making small choices. Get in the habit of making immediate choices and try not to delay decisions. Consider your daily, monthly, weekly annual or lifelong goals.......Think about how every action, every choice, takes you toward or away from your goal. Making choices and especially good choices that effect your progress, is a key component of achieving what you want in your life.
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As I was a person who, until recently, abrogated my right to make choices, this essay is very meaningful. Now, assuming the joy of making my own choices with gusto, I have moved on to a more nuanced appreciation of this subject. The curious choices that people make fascinate me and this was recently demonstrated to me in a most amusing way while at the office. I am friends with Jung, a Korean-American woman. I don't know why, as it is a little perverse, but I am always making friends, very naturally, with the Asian chicks! Jung and I are tight office friends, despite the difference in our ages. We just seem to click and I enjoy her company and quiet office chatter. I recently learned something revelatory about her from close observation of her daily routine. I became intensely interested in her curious choice of consuming large quantities of junk food. When I remarked on this, she confided to me that at previous jobs, junk food was redefined as "Jung's food". To date, being in her mid-30s, this doesn't yet affect her metabolism or bodyline. I watch her all day trying each new snack provided by the office. I hear the crackle of the cellophane alternated with the pop of the coke can and return, somewhat solemnly, to drinking my heated beverage.
What is even more interesting is the root of this obsession with junk food. She tells me that her parents, Korean immigrants living in Maryland, owned during her childhood a gas station with a mini-mart. To this day, she equates comfort food with anything that one can buy in a mini-mart. How extraordinary! Hostess cupcakes, coca-cola, chips - you name it - she's eaten it more than once and with great delight. This does make sense as she explains that her mother was not adept at cooking American food so the odd moments when it became available to her was like finding manna, the equivalent of eating forbidden fruit. She also had the dubious distinction of being the only one in grade school who actually liked and looked forward to eating school lunches. Today, she looks at me and says "Hmmm, healthy food or McDonalds's today?" The classic small burger, fries & coke usually wins out as nostalgia triumphs.
In our household with the French, Italian and Asian influences, food was always front & center. Our food choices do express our individualism for better or worse and I admit to being a New York food snob. A friend once told me that I was "the only person she knew who had leftover homemade ratatouille in the freezer". My daughters have become foodies in their own individual ways. Justine once imperiously detoured an architecture tour in Rome with her Cornell class because she spied cilantro and felt compelled to buy it. She complained bitterly to me that the Italians were limited to the appreciation of their native cuisine and indeed, it is hard to find an abundance of ethnic food in Rome. Caprese salad was banned from our dinner table for months upon her return. One cannot forget the contributions of the French who outdo all others in the culinary regard. My food stories from France are too numerous to mention here and I will have to self-edit or Russ will take away my blog privileges. My personal favorite (to honor the cult of Julia Child) was the occasion of hosting our friend Jean-Christophe from Bordeaux at our dinner table when he ran the NYC Marathon with my husband. I served a respectable boeuf bourguignon (from the famous Julia recipe) which elicited a most appreciative comment: "Nancy, tu es une perle".... expressing his pleasure with the meal which more or less translated to being a keeper in the eyes of a Frenchman.
cont'd
As for my delightful friend, Jung, her worship of American style food is balanced out by her current mission to compile, notate and record to written memory all the Korean menus prepared by her mother from her childhood as a gift to her future progeny. This disparate choice between junk food and ethnic food demonstrates our capacity as humans to make two opposing choices simultaneously. We are each a bundle of contradictions, it seems, as concerns our choices. However, these contradictions enliven the human condition and make us more interesting, perhaps maddening to our loved ones and those with who we are in close proximity. Indeed, this ying/yang being played out in Jung shows us that we are a composite of good and bad (or poorer) choices every day which can, at times, be the spice of life.
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