Sugar and Spice

sugar and spice

I recently participated in an advanced 5 day Thai cooking course.  It was a great experience and the one technique I learned during the cooking process is the taste test.  I was impressed by how often bitter can be turned to delicious with a pinch of sugar or bland can become pungent with a splash of sour.

I find it interesting that daily living is not dissimilar to preparing food.  Life has its way of being sweet and serving a dish that is a bit sour.  Greatness is determined in how I treat the bitterness and make the day sweet.

A few years ago I was doing daily walks with my son; to drop my weight down from morbid obesity.  My son was three years old and I was his sitter so I bought a baby tram from a bicycle shop, it was made to roll easily in all terrains and it did; we had three courses that took us through coconut groves, down on the beach, through the bush, over hills and around the villages.  Our morning walks were a ritual.

A year passed, I was down 50kg/110lb and on the outside I was looking slim and fit.  I was feeling pretty good about myself but the extreme weight loss had me feeling unstable on my feet, I felt a bit like a new born colt; wobbly. 

Life was sweet; it looked like I was on track, I was training to run a marathon in the UK and I had opened a school for the international community that was growing faster than I could have hoped.   

The 13^th of December 2003, I took a fall that changed my plans for good.  I grew up playing sports; by the time I was 14 yrs old my ankles had been sprained so many times they felt like glass yet I had never felt the severity of the sprain I encountered that unlucky 13^th day.  The swelling was in my toes; the tip of my foot was deep purple, and ballooning with blood. The pressure from the inflammation was an excruciating pain that had me wishing I could amputate my foot if it would relieve the pulsating, torture.  It was the worst damage I had ever experienced from a sprain.  The result was nerve damage along with an arch that will never be the same.  My dream of running a marathon was shattered.

The bitter reality that my reckless behavior had brought this misfortune into my life only made matters worse, I felt guilty, childish, stupid and fragile.  I wanted to run, I needed to move and sweat my frustration away and I was stuck on my back, immobile and no longer agile.  I was 47 yrs old being forced to come to terms with my physical inadequacies and aging body; I was not happy.

Life had served me a plate of sour mash and I knew it was up to me to make it sweet but I couldn’t; it felt good being miserable, uninspired, victimized, helpless and hopeless.  I knew if I laid back and quit it did not matter, no one cared and life would move on without me and it did.  My friends and family recipe for dealing with quitters, victims or people on a pity pot is to ignore them, they made it very clear to me that no one would worry about me if I didn’t care about myself.

rebuild

I was at a cross roads that would determine the path of my transition into the middle ages; I was going to allow myself to be an old broken man or I was going to forgive myself for beings stupid, rehabilitate my injuries and make myself stronger and better in the process.   I made the choice to rebuild, rehab and rejuvenate and a few months later I was empowered with a new baby boy Phoenix.

feeling lucky?

We will always have times when life is a challenge and it is at those times when we must open our hearts and our souls to all that is good and accept our own greatness, roll up our sleeves, put on our boots and open a can of kick ass.

Go have some fun,

Geo.

Road Warrior

Be happy and healthy

Να είστε ευτυχισμένοι και υγιείς

Greek