“I hope my future husband is good at cooking so I won’t ever
have to worry about that on Thanksgiving.”
As soon as I said it, I was embarrassed, mostly because my
sister was quick to challenge me: “Why can’t you learn to cook?”
It sounded accusatory, as though she assumed I was waiting
for my future husband to “save” me from what I felt I couldn’t do. I’d meant it,
though, in a way that just hoped he’d complement me. I don’t see myself as
particularly proficient behind a stove, and I hoped his strengths would someday
cover my weakness.
“You can do anything you want to do.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Of course I know that; I'm the product of the generations before me who
fought for women’s abilities to define their own futures, and the daughter of the
‘90s Disney princess revolution which urged us to dream big and dare. I spend
idle moments with my iPhone searching for new inspirational quotes to use as my
lock screen background, and I scribble new goals and dreams in my journal daily.
But still I know that even with the best of intentions,
there are certain talents each of us inclines toward, and there’s a lot more
resistance involved in pushing aggressively toward success in something we’re not
naturally gifted in. That’s usually when we opt to leave that for someone else,
and cultivate the things we really enjoy instead (as I did, for example, when I
discovered my hand-eye coordination is seriously lacking and decided to pursue
theatre rather than sports in my childhood).
But the thing about cooking is that I’ve never even really
tried to learn how. My parents divorced when I was twelve, and though my mother
has many talents, cooking is not her forte. She didn’t teach me, and I guess
I’ve always considered the fact that I’ve never learned as proof positive that
I can’t, because if I could, I would
have done it already, and all these years of not having done it must mean it
would be all the more difficult to try now… right?
It’s become a popular self-deprecating joke, a conversation
starter even, when I speak with others about what we like to do: Oh you like to cook? That’s awesome. My
cooking expertise usually starts and ends with grilled cheese and anything that
comes out of a box. I can toss salads and dump ingredients in a crockpot. But
real cooking? Like, turning-the-stove-on cooking? Ain’t nobody got time for
that!
My sister’s comment the other day reminded me it’s time to reconsider
this, not only because others seem to pity a twenty-something college graduate
who still lives on a dorm room diet and who’s more than capable of teaching herself
how to cook, but also because… well…
I’d put myself in a box, hadn’t I? And the discomfort I was
feeling was the result of trying to cramp myself in a space too small for me.
We do this all the time, don’t we? Decide what we’re good
at, who we are and are not, what we can and can’t do. We catastrophize "what if" (What if it all goes horribly wrong?) without ever giving ourselves
the benefit of it – what if we’re actually really great at this
thing we’ve never tried?
We think we’re being true to who we are, and there’s
certainly something to be said for authenticity if it’s true. But how many
times do we use “I can’t” as an excuse to not find out who we are in the first
place… to keep hiding, to dull our sparkle, to stay shut inside our boxes when
our potentials long to be unpacked?
What’s something you’ve always assumed you couldn’t do? This
week, take one tiny step towards trying. Learn one recipe. Watch an instrument
tutorial on YouTube. Write a poem that no one else will ever see.
Replace "I can't," with, "What if...?" and give yourself the benefit of believing you can.
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