The other day I observed a very interesting conversation between my grandma and my 11 year old cousin. “Did you finish the assignment we started working on yesterday?” my grandma asked her.
“No… I don’t feel like doing it right now…” she began, and then changed her mind. “Actually I don’t want to do it at all…” this she said looking at me, giving me that adorable smile.
“You do know that’s not an option, don’t you?” My grandma smiled.
“But why not? Why can’t we not do certain things?” she asked, clearly in a mood to delay the writing work as much as possible.
“Because it’s not a choice!” My grandma replied calmly.
Unhappy with the answer she turned to me. “What do you do when you don’t want to do something, don’t feel like doing something, but have to do it because not doing it is not a choice?”
Surprised at being at the receiving end of such a profound question I answered, “When there is no choice, you have to do it.”, I answered.
“Duh! I know that! Granna just said that!” she rolled her eyes, clearly expecting more out of a sister she idolizes. Of course it’s not easy to pretend smartness all the time, I realized.
“I mean, can’t I hope that if I don’t do it, it will just go away?” she asked hopefully. “Maybe the teacher will change her mind?”
“Of course, that’s a possibility…” I stammered now looking at grandma for help.
“Okay, let me see. Imagine a plateful of delicious foodstuffs. Say it’s your friend’s birthday feast. All your favourite items are in it. However, hidden amongst the cakes, and chips is a bowl of fruit salad.” My grandma stopped a minute to see the reaction on her face. For the record my cuz for some reason hates fruit salad.
“Yuk!” she said.
“Yuk indeed! Now the most ideal situation would be to ignore bowl of fruit salad, and hope it will vanish by the time you finish the meal. Unless you believe in wasting food, throwing it away may not be an option. You can tell your friend’s mom that I hate fruit salad, but let’s say she is not around. Now you are left with three options. First, you can keep eating spoon full of fruit salad at regular intervals along with rest of the yummy food. The second option is eat it at the very end of your meal. And finally, you can eat it at the very beginning of the meal and then move on to the better food items in your plate.” Grandma waited for a response.
“Okay…” she said tentatively and I was sure she was cringing at the idea of eating that fruit salad!
“If you pick the first option, you will be spoiling your mood, the taste and the experience after every second or third bite.” Grandma explained.
“I don’t want to do that…” My cuz shuddered.
“Okay, if you pick the second option, chances are that after eating all those tasty dishes, you will end up eating something you would avoid, and get up from an otherwise delicious meal with a bad aftertaste, thus, more or less nullifying the entire eating experience.” This sounded interesting. Grandma was a genius.
“I don’t want to do that either…” she sounded sure.
“Finally, the third option. You can start a meal with a bad taste in your mouth and perhaps bad mood too, thanks to gulping something you hate… but as the meal progresses, you will forget the fruit salad totally… finish your meal and enjoy the experience too, isn’t it?” Grandma finished.
“Yes… I think so…” My cuz agreed reluctantly.
“So what will you pick then…?” Grandma asked.
“The third option…” she answered grudgingly.
“Very good. Now coming back to your question… unwanted activities and situations will arise all the time. Time-consuming homework is not going to go away… so what do you do? You may not have a choice of not doing it… but you always have a choice of selecting when you want to do it. Now do you want to ruin the experience of a delicious meal or not… the choice my dear is all yours…” My grandma smiled at me…
And I had a distinct feeling that the little talk was not just for the benefit of my 11 year old cousin!
