Have you ever eaten at a buffet?
If you have, you would have probably experienced the wide range of emotions that flood you while at a buffet.
First, you are hit with the joy and excitement of seeing all the tempting dishes laid down before you. The aroma of the dishes is tantalizing and it feels like an invitation to your taste buds. The array of dishes sprawled before you feel like a winning lottery ticket.
You begin to serve yourself the lined up dishes starting from the very first till the one your plate can hold.
You leave for your table and after finishing the food on your plate, you decide to get second servings of the dishes you liked the best.
You move forward into the main course taking in things that seem good.
As you come back to your table for the second time, you eat the dishes, a bit slowly, yet steadily.
You stand up one last time for the desserts. Someone tells you there is ice cream, and you head towards your favorite flavor and get scoops of it.
Licking off the last of the ice cream, you feel it. You feel it in your stomach that you’re done and you stop.
Your hunger has been satisfied but your cravings haven’t.
Looking at others’ plates, you feel like you are missing out on a lot of dishes.
As you leave for your home, the regret (as well as the food) begins to settle in. Just then, your friend says, “The blueberry crumble was so good, wasn’t it?”
What?! There was blueberry crumble too?
Yep, there was. You were just too busy devouring your favorite ice cream.
The feeling of regret intensifies and you realize that all the food in the world cannot unshackle the regret of not having eaten the dishes from a specific buffet.
If you have been to a buffet, and you tell me that you have not experienced this, you are lying. I refuse to believe the fact that someone can go to a buffet and not come back regretting that they missed some dishes, or didn’t have enough of one.
Even though there is no way to avoid regrets completely, there sure are ways to minimize them.
I used to think whenever at a buffet, I should eat as fast as possible. But that’s not the smartest way because it chokes the food pipe, thus making you full faster. So it’s better to take your time and eat the food at your own pace.
The second thing you could do is, taking up small portions of each dish. This way, you’d be able to try everything and still be able to take the second servings of what you actually like.
You can even take small sips of water (not too much, you don’t wanna fill yourself up with water) and take short walks in between.
You thought this was only gonna be about regrets at the buffet? Well, think again cause your life is not much different than a buffet.
You have an array of experiences available to you, that you’re excited to try in the beginning (your childhood), but as you move towards the main course (as you grow older) somehow your enthusiasm for the dishes dulls. And by the time you’re done having all your food and your ice cream (old age), someone tells you about blueberry crumble that you never got to have.
Why didn’t you get to have it? Just because you were too busy eating the same things over and over.
You should try everything – even if in small portions – so that you know what you like and what you don’t. You may even find some new gems when exploring.
If you don’t try everything, you risk not knowing what’s good and what’s not.
So the next time you’re at a buffet or leading your life, take control of situations so that regret doesn’t overwhelm your future with its presence. Take small portions of each dish and explore new things to know if they’re as good as the ones you already know.
Don’t be the one that leaves the buffet with regrets and leave this life knowing what you like and enjoyed, not with what you missed.
Recap for memory:
- At first, take small servings of everything.
- Try everything at a buffet, and in life.
- Leave with your new favorites, not regrets.