Ready To Eat
Harshuli Marathe
Microsoft Product Leader | Supply Chain, Data & Analytics, Sustainability, Innovation | Strategy & Consulting
I was watching a movie last night. The protagonist seemed to be doing this for third time in a day. The process seemed quite comprehensive. He took a cigarette out of the box, emptied its contents on the paper. Opened the packet of leaves and carefully crushed them, while removing stems. Mixed it with tobacco from the cigarette. Took out a rolling paper and curled it into cigarette like shape. Carefully sealed it with his tongue. Filled back the crushed contents into it. And Voila. There was an unsaid sense of accomplishment on his face after this charade.
It made me wonder, why won’t he make like 2 or 3 of those in one go rather than making a new one every single time. But the answer came screaming back in my head immediately, in the form of, why do we like freshly cooked food over Ready to Eat.
I wish we could apply this philosophy to some people in our lives. Every individual is constantly in the making, preparing oneself.
However, how often do we give people the time, the chance or the attention to cross this journey from rawness to simmering to blending until it becomes a prepared dish?
In this Ready to Eat world, we often expect people to enter our lives in a certain ready form. Why are we not willing to be part of the process, get our hands greasy before we deem a dish as worth or unworthy? Why have we started putting these expectations around people as if it were a dish ordered in a restaurant and must be a certain quality? And if it isn’t, it is as easy for us to just give a poor rating to the restaurant and avoid going back in altogether.
Can we go back to that friend we fought with due to some disagreement, that co-worker we thought was unfit for the job as he/she kept missing deadlines, that estranged parent who was too busy figuring his/her own while you were growing up, that companion that you pushed away because you felt better to stay away than to deal with it.
Can we be more invested in working with our people, working on relationships.
Understand them. Support them. Prepare them.
#manvsmachine #supportmentalhealth #peoplematter #goodhealthandwellbeing #earthday #sdg3