dstss - i hate that, but i'll give it a try.....

61. Read articles and books with entirely different points of view from your own and try to learn something

i am quite vocal about my dislike of mushrooms. i have tried them. shitake, brown, king, magic and they all end with the same result - dislike and horror.

during my first week at work, a colleague recommended a place to get lunch and i was feeling adventurous and decided to give it a go. it was a vietnamese place and it had vegetarian options (no fish sauce, no shrimp paste - you get it, right), but they were ALL made with mushroom - broth, sauce, or whole, with their special mushroom specialness.

i asked for something non mushroom and they happily obliged but encouraged me to try the mushroom.

but i don't eat mushroom, i have tried and no lady should feel the need to gag on anything that goes in her mouth. and that's what mushrooms do to me.  i put them in, chew them a bit, let my taste buds and brain work it out, then when it's time to go down, i have to spit, not swallow.

the nice man at the shop encouraged me to try his special mushrooms and felt they would be different to anything i had eaten before and gave me a little tub on the side.

well, he had a different point of view to me, but i was prepared to see his - maybe my mushroom capability had changed and with the new life of jan, perhaps it would be different.  well i can assure you i tried one piece and guess what mushrooms are still not for me.

so, what does this have to do with chapter 61? well it's about being open to exploring mindsets outside your norm and the chapter refers to reading, but it could really be anything that might challenge the routine thinking that we often revert to. and if i can do it with mushrooms (year after year) then it's possible that it can be done all the time when opportunity presents - i think i will never be one with mushrooms, but i have challenged my belief system with avocado and cucumbers and now i love them - even though it's only taken about 40 years to give them the thumbs up.

note to self: if you take small bites of the point of view (the cucumbers, the avocado, the mushrooms), it's possible that your world will open up in ways you never thought possible - hello guacamole, avocado on toast, cucumber sandwiches - my world is better because of these and all because i chose to see a different way of viewing these things even though i was pretty certain that i'd never like them.