Who Served My Rice?

Do you know why Buffets exist? Why they are so popular? Because, that is one of the few places that we can serve ourselves, whatever we want in whatever quantity we want to. No wonder people serve massive plates at the buffet right. Its just a way of saying Fuck you to everyone who served shit that we don’t like on our plates, both literally and figuratively.

One of the people that I am mentoring these days had a very nagging issue, something that, accordingly to him, has been very frustrating for a few years now and which he cannot figure out how to overcome. Now this guy was a very smart person, academically more than qualified to execute his JD of work. But somehow, he was not able to figure this out.

So what was his problem…he is constantly stressed out and tired. He gets adequate sleep most days and on some days he says that he doesn’t even have that much of work or chores to do. But on some days he just has so much to do both at home and work that he doesn’t know whether he is sitting or standing. This guy comes across as ‘nice guy’, you know the kind of person that you like to hang out with and talk to, soft spoken and usually accepts things when pointed out.

I listened to him carefully, and I asked him a question which I am sure questioned his decision to even consider me as mentor.

Me: Who serves your Rice?

Mentee: (looking perplexed) I am sorry?

Me: No no I am sorry, I assumed that since we are Sri Lankan, you eat Rice.

Mentee: Well yes, I DO eat rice but…

Me:…but what the hell has that got to do with your issue at hand right?

Mentee: Well…yes! (I could see his gaze shifting towards the door and feet pointing towards it. This is of course is an unconscious body language cue that most of us exhibit when we want to get out from somewhere or get away from something)

Me: OK let me explain

Mentee: (Settling down in his seat once again) Yes…PLEASE!

Me: …but you have to first trust me and answer my question. Who serves your Rice?

Mentee: Well, on office days, before I got married, it was Mother or sister. But now it is mostly my wife but sometimes my mother also does it.

Me: Ok, what about on weekends, holidays and other days that you are at home.

Mentee: Well, we tend to eat at the table together, but most of the time the Rice portion is served and I just serve the vegetables and other curries myself.

Me: Ok, so the largest component of your meal, which takes up most of the plate and which ends up filling you the most, the Rice…is served by SOMEONE ELSE for YOU?

Mentee: Yes, but on weekdays, it is not practical for me serve my own rice and on the other days…well, I don’t really think about who serves my rice to be honest and I am unsure why you are concerned about it either (I could see that he was getting annoyed again).

Me: Imagine that your day is your plate. And just like your plate, you have a limited amount of stuff that you can put on to it. Also, just like your stomach is limited in the capacity to digest food at a given time, hence can only accommodate a limited amount of food per serving, you as an individual, have a limited capacity to digest information and execute work at a given time.

Mentee: Ok, I get that part ( I told you that this guy was smart)

Me: Great! So now, consider this. Let’s go back to the Plate, As Sri Lankans, RICE is out staple, we usually think that more of it is the Good, and given that you have a limited capacity in terms of the plate and your stomach, the amount of Rice that is served on the plate will determine, how full the plate gets and how full you will feel having consumed the rice and how much work your digestive system has to do to process the rice. Are you still with me here?

Ok, so if you have more rice on your plate, like you said, someone else serves the rice on your plate right? Then that leaves less room on the plate to serve the other vegetables that you like and want to eat and that are healthy, right. Now one can argue, specially if you are Sri Lankan, that you can simply serve as much of the curries that you want, on to the plate vertically like a mountain.

You can’t use your plate for this. And if you by some feat of amazing Sri Lanka innovation and determination, manage to serve all this stuff on to your plate, you now have to eat it…and then you have to digest it.

Given these predicaments, what would you do in this situation to ensure that you;

• Eat Enough Rice
• Eat the veggies that you like in the quantities that you like
• don’t overload the plate
• don’t stuff yourself

You would SERVE YOUR SELF THE RICE!

Ok now, moving to the problem at hand and drawing parallels to from our Rice Plate scenario;

If your Day is your plate and if you feel that you are STUFFED, Tired and lethargic at the end of the day on a continuous basis, chances are that you have consumed more of the RICE kind of heavy stuff and less of the RIGHT kind of stuff like vegetables kind of stuff that you like to do. And just like that plate, chances are someone else is serving the stuff that we don’t like or that make you tired and lethargic and eventually drained and unhappy. And YOU are just consuming what is being served on your plate of life. This can be due to many reasons. You are either too busy actually doing the work that you are not paying attention to the kind of work that you are doing or you are just used to being served the majority of what you consume that you barely even notice what is on your plate in what quantity when it comes to you. Sometimes you do notice that there is a bit too much and you consume it anyway, because you are a nice Sri Lankan and you don’t want to let anyone down or say No.

When we have too much of the stuff that just fills us…our stomachs…and our days…we will not have enough space and energy to serve the stuff that is actually is good and nourishes us and/or stuff that we like. And the people just serve stuff on our plate, don’t really know and/or care about what is good for us. Sometimes they just serve it because they served too much on their plate, and don’t want it anymore.

Back to my Buffet theory. After a week of eating shit that has been served on our plates by other people, boss, spouse, kids, society etc we get to finally just serve ourselves at Sunday brunch. Also, if you look at people at the buffet (including yourself), you’ll realise different styles of buffet eaters.

More Rice / More sides / Good balance of both / A lot of both

I bet these people have fascinating stories to tell about how their plate is a reflection of their Lifestyle.

Think about this and let me know in the comments what kind of ‘server’ you are and if it indeed vaildated my theory here. Happy Serving!