THERE was no lunch laid out for me the other day. It’s a habit of mine to leave my door open, while I write in my study. The cook comes in everyday as she has been coming for the last twenty five years and cooks a meal for me. When the children were there, she cooked for all of us, but now it’s just for me, as my wife has her lunch between her cases at the hospital.
But, that day, there was no lunch laid out for me. “Where’s my food?” I nearly shouted, and realized I was shouting at walls which stared back at me in gloomy silence. I looked once again at the table, and groaned. What was I supposed to do? What had happened to the cook? Why hadn’t she come? Would I have to starve? Was this the beginning of a two-meal day I would have to follow? A diet conspiracy?
Suddenly I faced the unknown, as I realized I was way out of my comfort zone. As I wondered what to do, I remembered what the children did, when something like this happened. “Let’s ring up mummy!” they would say. “Yes,” I said to myself, “Let’s ring her up!”
But as I took the phone in my hands, a bit of an adult thought ran through me. What would she say anyway? She would work out a way to get me my food. “Hey!” I suddenly thought, “This could mean I can go out and eat!” I shouted for my driver, but found he had gone out for lunch. That’s when I fished in a kitchen shelf and found the menu.
Pizza!” I exclaimed to myself, “What a wonderful reason to have pizza!” And that’s how that day’s ‘un-comfort zone’ experience was converted into a delicious, mouth-watering lunch, just by planning how I could get the best out of what I would otherwise have considered a disastrous situation.
How often we look petrified at the future when we don’t see the familiar anymore. That day my lunch being laid out on the table, was what I was familiar with, my cook arriving on time, was what I was used to, but finally, the pizza I ate was much tastier than anything she could have whipped up for me.
We tiptoe through life happy with the same routine. We aren’t like mountain climbers, climbing a different peak every day, reaching the top and enjoying a new breathtaking view from a different mountain. We just love the familiar, and get stuck in our comfort zones.
But if you want to enjoy a pizza adventure, because your familiar is getting a bit disturbed today, then smack your lips, rub your hands together as a mouthwatering experience awaits you! It could even be better than my pizza..
