There's just this special feeling that comes with discovering something so trivial yet powerful enough to shape and change your perception to an aspect of life. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking or revolutionary, just uncomplicated approaches that alters how we think, act or perceive the world which eventually ends up making life easier, straight forward and way less stressful depending on what direction one intends to interpret stress. In most cases, these are situations we tend to ignore even though they hold the potential to completely restructure our daily lives as we know it. It is no secret that in the world, people are always fighting to utilize time, money and every other thing that seems to be of limited supply so uncovering some sort of hack that will help to navigate through life seamlessly can easily be described as life's equivalent to stepping on a gold mine.
For the longest time I have always hated cooking referring to it as a woman's chore without any intention of even learning the basics. As long as I turn on and off the stove for the purpose of boiling water, nothing else mattered. Inevitably I went to school with this same mindset and was forced to deal with the consequences of my decisions. Being new to the environment came with numerous restrictions and since I never liked eating out, I had no option but to eat the low budget poison I always prepared. Having no interest in cooking I decided to stick to eating junk and buying meals from restaurants as the alternatives. Everything seemed fine at first until the inability to keep up with this lifestyle became my new reality. This new choice of eating outside came with numerous problems;
- I quickly burnt through my pocket money because this proved to be very expensive and since I was just an undergraduate with no side hustle or joke, I easily going broke.
- Since I did not know what and how these foods were made, I was always having Tummy turbulence forcing to not only spend my money on food but also on medications as my stomach was very picky and fragile.
- Due to the tiny portions served and sold at these restaurants due to their capitalist objections, I also left there hungrier than before I came.
After enough back and forth, I realized I cannot continue like this for the entirety of my stay in school and even though I always tagged cooking as a woman's chore, I concluded it was time I started getting good at it. Whenever I go to a friend's place and he or she was cooking I'd volunteer to help staying close enough to watch how the whole cooking process unfolded before going home to give it a try. This continued for quiet sometime until I even decided to experiment on new dishes I have never tried before. What started as exercise to count down on my expenditure, slowly became a hobby that I enjoy doing. I so much fell in love with cooking that I made sure I do it every single day just to improve not just for myself but also my future family.
Cooking might be time consuming and even quite stressful but one simple truth still remains; it is way more cheaper to cook at home than buying from a restaurant or a local canteen. It is a life hack I discovered after making countless mistakes and wasteful spending. I no longer look at it as a feminine trait but as a survival skill everybody should learn regardless of their gender or values..
Thank you.
Ps. All images are mine.