Sunday Story...Grandma and the Ham

This story has had poetic license applied to it! Once when my mother was making a ham for dinner, she got her pan out, got the ham out, cut the ends of the ham off and put it in the pan. I was watching closely as I often did (this is how I learned to cook after all). So I asked, thinking there was some magic kitchen secret in this procedure, “Mama, why did you cut the ends of the ham off?” She paused in her preparation and thought for a minute and said “Well, that’s the way my mother did it. Maybe we better call Grandma and ask her why.” So we called Grandma asked her why she cut the ends off the ham before she cooked it. And her answer was very simple…she said “the only way the ham would fit in my roasting pan was to cut the ends off of it!”

There is a ton of stuff in your life and mine that are being done because, like “Grandma and the ham,” it is the way it has always been done. Now there is no reason to cut the ends of the ham off unless it won’t fit in the roasting pan any other way. What else are you doing in your life because that is the way it has always been done?

There are lots of reasons to have “rules” in life. Washing your hands after using the bathroom, jumping out off airplanes with no parachute, or not looking both ways when you cross the street, for instance, are a good rules for safety, health and hygiene. Cutting the ends off the ham, not so much. Some rules you make up for your life when you are young based on your experiences. You are older now and it is time to look at those rules and get rid of some of them. You have more information now, more data points upon which to make an educated decision.

Sometimes we make rules to keep ourselves interested or to make an activity more fun. You might want to keep those rules. You can always change them based on the shifting situation or boredom. The problem is created when those rules get set in stone and begin to look immutable. Then you end up with things like “Grandma and the ham”. Except those are really dumb when you begin picking them apart.

Sometimes society makes rules that are equally dumb…interracial marriage, separate but equal schools, slavery, or women and children as chattel (owned property) just to name a few things that used to be the law of the land and have since changed. There are lots of things in our lives right now today that in 20 years are going to be looked upon as really dumb, backward, or asinine rules that no one in their right mind would ever follow.

You need to start inspecting and thinking and deciding for yourself which rules are a good idea and should be followed and which ones belong on the dung heap of bad ideas, rules, laws and policies. It’s your life and your choice of rules to follow. Do the research, investigate, think it through, cast a critical eye upon them no matter where they come from and make your own considered decision. Take charge of the rules in your life…it’s your life, it’s your movie and you should be the primary mover and shaker in your movie!

On the other hand sometimes when Grandma does stuff you should too!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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