On Taking The Plunge

ON TAKING THE PLUNGE

It was Saturday night and I had invited a colleague and secret sweetheart to have dinner at home to celebrate my recent and unexpected promotion. While chopping down all kinds of vegetables and selecting the ingredients to start cooking a stew - my specialty- for that night, I decided this time I wanted to add to it my personal touch. So, I stopped following the recipes. It was time to take some risks and make the stew in my own way!

Whenever we are cooking and we don´t really know how to do it well, we feel insecure and afraid of doing something wrong, and these feelings make us realize that cooking- like everything else in life- is about making decisions and taking risks. Life is like cooking. We don´t want to have bland and insipid days. Although we know that in order to season our lives we should sprinkle drops of tasty and piquant instants, we sometimes are afraid of taking risks, of taking the wrong decisions, of ending up spoiling everything by making things bitter, stodgy or even inedible.

More often than not, we find ourselves with a tiny container in our hands wondering: “Should I use these spices?”, “Is it OK if I add a bit more of paprika?”, “would all these herbs make the dish savory or revolting?”. Likewise, many times we find ourselves wondering, “should I take this step in my life?”, “is it ok if I risk everything I have gained to try to have something better?”

Striking a balance is never easy. Adding a little spice keeps situations gripping, but adding too much of it, like when the lid pops off and the pepper pours in, makes us no longer enjoy the meal. The fear of losing everything or not being able to do certain things is paralyzing and that inaction is worse than any bad results we may get when we decide to take the plunge. The challenges we impose to ourselves are like the extra flavors we add when we cook that make us feel really alive and delighted. After all, we know we have two options, either we cook and eat just to nourish our bodies or also to have pleasure and feed our souls and senses with the overpowering and lingering smells which irradiate from the plate.

Later that night, after we had enjoyed the exquisite stew, I looked at my partner. I was almost certain we both felt something for each other. So, without saying a word I decided to take the plunge and I kissed him. He stared at me, surprised, and remained in silence for a while. When I thought he would say I had mistaken his intentions and mixed my feelings up, he just said, “Both your stew and your kiss are terribly more-ish” and he kissed me back.

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