Not at All Stagnant

I have been working in the kitchen for almost a year and a half now. Recently, I have been working mostly in the salad section, I can’t complain though since I love the early schedule of doing the salad. I could work almost anywhere in the kitchen except for one place: sushi. Funny thing though is that’s the most thing that interests me—you know me, right?—but I could never get that shift. I guess some people—we call them the OGs—really have been working in that area for a long time now that they don’t need new people there. However, for the past 2 months, people have been quitting to the point where it messed everyone’s regular schedule. And you know what they say, things happen when you least expect them…

Brian, my former colleague, taught me how to roll sushi and pack them. It was brief, but it made me so happy. It had been so long since I felt excited in my workplace. A week after that, he quit. Then comes one day when half of the people from the kitchen called in-sick. The cook had no choice but to place me in the sushi section. I was so excited hahaha I couldn’t help smiling while rolling the sushi. First, you grab a nori sheet then grab a handful of sushi rice then spread them atop of the rice. Then, turn it over, place the crab meat, cucumber and avocados inside. Then here comes the tricky part: rolling the sushi without having anything coming out of it and shaping them with the bamboo sushi roller. But oh wait, there’s trickier than that: cutting it! 😹I had to leave that part to my senior since when I cut it, everything comes out on both ends of the roll. But yeah, I had so much fun. Now, I can make my sushi at home.

I went home feeling satisfied and I can’t help but think that it’s been so long since I learned a new thing in my workplace. I just realized I have been so comfortable with what I know now that it never occurred to me that something else could also offer me happiness. Reflecting as I walked back home, I thought of things in terms of where I stand in my life outside my work life. I’ve been preoccupied with studies—as I should be—that it’s kind of hard to see past it. But then I thought, if it was possible for me to feel excited over some simple sushi rolling, then maybe I just needed something new in my life right now. It doesn’t have to be something big but at least something that would make me flinch and say hey this thing makes me weirdly happy. 

Sometimes, we’re just too focused on doing what we know. Sure there’s no harm in doing what we’re good at and harnessing it, but sometimes there’s more to experience outside of what we already know. It’s not necessarily leaving our past and starting anew, but more of expanding that little bubble around us that we call comfort zone and growing out of it. 

xoxo

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