#22 - Try a New Cuisine

recently, a co-worker left the office for bigger and better things in life, and we said good-bye by having some Peruvian food. i had never had Peruvian food before, but i wasn't until AFTER we had finished our meal that i realized i had achieved another goal. the reason why i didn't even think that i had never had Peruvian before and how i was going to be able to check off another goal on the list was because for a while now, Ash and i have been planning a "morocco night," during which we'd watch Casablanca and eat Moroccan food, thus killing two goals in one evening. i guess this is another one of those lessons i needed to learn - that sometimes i can get so caught up planning to achieve a goal that i lose sight of actually achieving that goal.

i am reminded of a saying i heard once, that "life is what happens when you're too busy planning life." i'm not sure now where i'd heard that, but i can't help but pause at the depth of that notion. sometimes, us Type A personalities spend all of our time planning the next event, the next adventure, the next experience that we neglect the here and now. when i was in high school, i participated in a summer pre-college arts program where all i did was paint all day, every day for 6 weeks. it was one of the greatest times of my life. one of the lessons that stuck to me from that summer workshop was a piece of advice from my painting instructor: to pay attention to the PROCESS and not the PRODUCT. through him, i learned that while the end-product - the painting - is what people see in a museum or a gallery, it is often the PROCESS that gives it life, depth, meaning, that intangible element that gives the viewer a connection to what is in front of them.

i feel as though that this is another lesson to be learned from the goals i set out. when i first listed these goals, i was concerned about ATTAINING them; i was concerned about the PRODUCT. but perhaps the end purpose of these goals is not to be realized in full, but rather to take me down paths that i never have walked otherwise (like running!), so that i can grow in the process.