Living in Degrees

My Moms cooking is exquisite, it is healthy yet rich in flavor and succulent. She does it all without measurements, she has no measuring spoons, no scales, or other measuring utensils, she just has her judgment, her experience and her love for making a good hearty meal for the family everyday. I asked her once, “Mom how do you know how much salt to add, or how long to leave the chicken in the oven? How can I learn to cook just like you?” and she replied, “Sweetheart, I can’t teach you these things, one day you will just know, sometimes even the same teaspoon of salt added to the same sized dish, could make the meal distasteful.”

Humans have this habitual persistence on measuring everything, the temperature, their weight, how many miles till your destination, even MS Word counts the number of words we type, and the characters we punch in… What is with this incessant need to live in degrees? You don’t have to know it is a beautiful day outside by listening to the weather forecast, just step outside you will know, don’t keep looking at signs to see how long you still have till you get to your destination, enjoy the journey because sometimes the journey is so much better than the destination, and don’t keep getting on that scale, 2 pounds extra does not mean you have to sign up to be the next contestant of The Biggest Loser.

So I guess living by degrees is really not about measurement, but about experience, both in the past and in the present.