Some "food purists" will say that I’m barbaric and uncultured – that eating is supposed to be a slow, deliberate, and delicate activity, that each bite must be savored and "experienced." Wine connoisseurs will say the same thing about drinking wine. It shouldn’t be gulped; it should be carefully and methodically spread out all over your mouth with your tongue so that each of your taste buds can relish and take delight in the wine’s exquisite taste.
With all due respect to etiquette gurus on wining and dining, I don’t particularly subscribe to such rules. All right, maybe in formal occasions. Okay, okay, in semi-formal cocktails as well. But that’s it. The moment I remove my suit and tie, I remove all pretension from my body – and I’ll eat and drink the way I want. Of course, I won’t eat like those contestants in hotdog-eating contests. Even in eat-all-you-can situations, there’s such a thing as good taste. But a buffet is a buffet. And by a buffet’s very nature, it’s a no-holds-barred affair. I will put any kind of food on my plate – and I will eat to my heart’s (and stomach’s) delight. No rules on what comes first and what comes second. When there’s a buffet, I only have one frame of mind: attack.
Whenever I’m at a buffet though, I notice something peculiar. Despite the fact that we can always come back to the buffet table for seconds – or thirds – people always try to fill up their plates. Men, especially, they put mounds and mounds of food on their plates like there’s no tomorrow – rice, bread, chicken, veggies, beef, pork, shrimp, fish, meatballs, soup, appetizer, sushi, sashimi, soy sauce plate, lechon (complete with Mang Tomas sauce on the side), ice cream, cake.
And while we make our way around the buffet table, we somehow manage to grab a knife and fork and carefully thrust them into the base of the food mountain. And once all the sauce starts dripping from the edge of the plate, and we come to realize that we have enough, we work our way back to the table with the grace of a ballerina, gliding effortlessly while carrying the dripping plate in one hand, and our drink in the other. But by the time we clean up our plates, we’re already suffering from indigestion.
Why do we do that? Why do we try to grab everything all at the same time and put everything on our plates? It’s not as if the food is going to run out. So the question is: why do we act the way we do at buffets?
I call it the too-much-on-our-plate syndrome. Sometimes, we can’t get enough of what’s being offered and our greediness takes over even when we can’t make use of everything we get.
Personally, I’m guilty of this syndrome. I try to juggle a lot of things all at the same time. Come to think of it, that’s not even an accurate statement. A juggler holds and throws each item one at a time – never all together. In a nutshell, I’m just a guy who likes to have everything on my plate all at the same time — and then try to eat everything all at the same time.
One of the reasons why I have a tendency to do this is because for some odd reason, I haven’t developed the discipline of doing a to-do list, maintaining one and following it to the letter. Normally, I make a list but I still act as if life is a smorgasbord. I attack, attack, and attack every activity without rhyme or reason.
Sometimes I get really excited about drafting a to-do list especially early in the year when I have a lot of planners (corporate gifts). I am quick to jot down my to-do list and even split it up between an office list and a personal list. I write down the list very legibly and cleanly. Then, as I accomplish each task, I cross out the activity. But as I erase each item, the list becomes really dirty — and all of a sudden, I lose my excitement. Before I know it, I’m floating around again in the buffet of must-do’s. And once again, I get mired in all the activities that I have to do, and my day becomes one big giant mound of food, ready to be undigested.
So if there’s one New Year’s resolution I will keep, it’s this: I will constantly have a to-do list. And I plan to maintain it and follow it to the letter. Because, really, if you don’t follow a to-do list, what’s it for, right? A to-do list can help put you at ease and sleep well at night because then you don’t have to stay up at night deliberating on all the things you have to do. Once you have a to-do list, you can forget it and go to bed knowing exactly what to do and prioritize the next day. It’s all on paper – or your phone. All you have to do is look at the list the next day, and you’re all set.
So now I’m starting again. In fact, that’s the first item on my to-do list – I will do a to-do list.
Once you have a to-do list, you will realize that life can still be an "eat all you can" experience. But there’s a way to live it without suffering from indigestion.