Egg mayo DIY
DO. Human beings get frustrated by all sorts of things. I, for one, hate waste. Food waste included. One evening, I and my son were making some egg mayo for our sandwiches. Frustration stroke when we could not conjure even a microscopic volume of mayo from a third-full bottle.
Well, I admit it was me who got annoyed. Adam had a more practical solution. He asked for the mayo bottle, made sure the cap is closed, held the bottle in his straightened arm and started to quickly move it in 360-degree vertical circles. A few seconds later, mayo was ready to burst out. A magic of... physics. Interestingly, he had no idea how he came up with what needed to happen.
Needless to say, this was the best sandwich ever. Again.
FEEL. Have you ever tried to knock down a thing from your mental to do list, feeling pressure to get it off your mind really quickly and never think of it again? Of course, we all do it. Interestingly, sometimes it generates more work than we ever imagined.
As a man of the house, coming from a country where DIY is culturally weaved into male identity (that's for another time), I tend to do many house jobs myself. In such fashion, I aimed to install two led lights on the wall of our lounge. Drill four holes, screw the base to the wall, assemble the parts and ready for use. A 20-minute job.
That only works if you take proper measurements and calculate the right position of the base.
20 minutes later, I had one of the lights perfectly installed... exactly four inches away from where the base should have been. Not the end of the world. But now I still had four more holes to drill, and two new holes to... make disappear.
So here is the highlights reel from the rest of this day:
the hero is frustrated with the setback but decides against giving up.
in his naiveite (which he does not obviously realize then), he decides to extend the fixing work to a few minor cracks or dents in drywalls elsewhere at home
to leverage technology (and avoid embarrassment), the hero spends the next hour talking to ChatGPT and watching YouTube videos on DIY channels. Already feels qualified for an honorary PhD.
he embarks on a trip to local DIY store, fails to buy half of the items but brings home twice as many other things he did not realize he needed, until walking in the store
the rest of the day is filled with mixing compounds, using fiber mesh tape, applying, spreading, sanding and painting.
two days later, an independent auditing committee (read: my wife) presents her findings.
tomorrow, another visit in the DIY store to get more paint and repaint the entire room.
If JRR Tolkien ever set 'Lord of the Rings' in a handymen community, that would have been a moment when the Fellowship are overrun by the orcs!
But strangely, it wasn't.
THINK. Something made me pause and reflect on both experiences, seeking a connection and deeper meaning. How can a 13-year-old remain calm and instinctively find the exact solution to a mayo bottle drama? How one moment of rushed activity leads to a day or more of work?
In the former case, I think Adam did not see it as anything frustrating at all. A mere bump on the road. He did try something, it worked, and he never thought twice of it.
The latter rootcause is that I was already mentally at the next activity for the day. Another painful reminder to stick in the present and focus on the here and now.
What it also reinforced was not to treat myself so seriously. Thankfully, I have resolved the situation. Nothing really happened.
And I have another story to tell.
