Work I Love Doing, That is Loved
This is what I want out of life.
I’ve had a Netflix show called Street Food playing today, while I work. Each short episode focuses on (no surprise) street food in a different Asian city — so far I’ve seen episodes based in Thailand, Japan, India, and Indonesia.
Each episode introduces street cooks and their signature dishes.
As I write this, the host is speaking to a 100-year-old Indonesian woman who makes and sells a jackfruit stew called Gudeg using the same recipes her mother and her grandmother used.
The same episode shows the only factory making cassava noodles in the old-fashioned way — including grinding the root with an ox-driven mill stone.
Maybe this show is affecting me so much because it does such an amazing job of highlighting the storytelling involved in food and cooking and eating.
This is what I want from my life.
Work that I love doing that results in something that brings joy to other people. Not because of some marketing scheme or sales funnel, but because I’ve told a story worth reading. Or because I’m teaching something worth learning.
Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.
Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the original Ninja Writer.
