What Making Chickpea Patties Reminded Me About Life

I’ve a love-hate relationship with making chickpea patties. On one hand, it always turns out pretty decent. On the other hand, it’s a pain in the ass to make. Mostly because I don’t have a food processor, and I’m lazy.

My method of making chickpea patties involve rinsing and mashing 2 cans of chickpeas, grating a large carrot, finely-chopping half an onion, 4 cloves of garlic and a handful of parsley, then mixing and seasoning the mixture. When that’s done, combine them with 2 eggs and 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs and fry them.

It would’ve been a breeze to make it with a food processor, but we don’t own one. So I rely on a fork, a bowl, a potato masher and a flimsy grater and patience. Honestly, I don’t mind it that much. It makes me feel like I’m honoring older times, when food processors didn’t exist.

Cooking is a chance to practice mindfulness

I do feel a little resistance when I begin making it, but then I’ll tweak my mindset and take it as a chance to practice mindfulness instead.

Since I’ve been having a troublesome couple of days, I could use some mindful cooking. For some reason, I’ve been plagued with sleepiness and shortness of breath. I almost wanted to go for something ready-made like the delicious Beyond Burger. But if I chose the processed food, my day might as well have been wasted.

So I dragged my ass out of bed and started preparing.

A lot of things can be used to practice mindfulness. I do it even when I eat. To practice mindfulness when I cook, I keep my attention on what I’m doing, and keep my breathing slow and even. Most importantly, I try not to rush it and not to feel anxious. This is important because I’m a slow (very slow) person. I do everything slowly and I can’t help it. So sometimes I tend to look at the time and start rushing – it’s the fastest way to lose mindfulness.

Believe it or not, if you’re mindful when you do a chore, it becomes less of a chore. This includes washing dishes. It’s my secret weapon.

In any case, my mind soon wandered, I found myself thinking about my life as I mashed the rinsed and drained chickpeas with our trusty potato-masher. I let my mind go.

Observing your thoughts without judgement is one of the best things you can do for yourself

Part of me suspected that my fatigue and shortness of breath were caused by tension. I’ve been worrying about writing. My writing journey has been a lot of one step forward, two steps back, with me experiencing a writer’s block every other day. Perhaps the worrying has caused those physical symptoms to manifest?

Of course, it goes beyond that. It’s also because of my unemployment. My life thus far has been “decorated” with a lot of unemployment. It happens every three years or so, and lasts up to two years. In other words, I’m a dysfunctional young adult.

My sensitive disposition made it hard for me to succeed in the workplace. I worked at a research institute for several years, reading eyes, and I really love that part of it. But it never got easier for me to keep up with the administrative parts of it. Who should I contact for what? Who’s the Principle Investigator for what? Purchasing things is even more difficult. What form do I use? How do I find a vendor?

I’m not good at it, and I knew it. I even hate the phone.

Making chickpea patties is a good analogy for life

As I grated the carrot, I realized that living has a lot in common with making chickpea patties.

Living is like the process of making the patties, our skills are like the kitchen tools we have. Some of us have more experience making patties, some of us have better tools.

Why do we expect everyone to be able to do the same things at the same speed, when each of us have different temperaments and skill-sets? Would you blame someone for taking longer to make chickpea patties because they didn’t have a food processor?

Having social anxiety and not being socially adept is like not having a food processor when I need to make chickpea patties. The difference being, I can’t just get out there to purchase “the ability to cope with society”.

It took me forever to grate that carrot on the flimsy grater, just as it’s taking me forever to get my footing in life. Sadly, it’s easier for me to forgive myself for the former than the latter.

I blame myself for the pickle I’m in all the time – for not overcoming social anxiety entirely and for not being “normal”. I should be working and paying for my own apartment by now, not impose on various family members.

It’s harder for me to carve out a living for myself, but like making chickpea patties without a food processor, it’s slow but possible. I just need to put in more effort and have more patience.

In conclusion

We’re all born with different temperament and capabilities. It’ll take a lot of pressure off our backs if we thought of our qualities as tools we have, and living as making chickpea patties.

That means we shouldn’t blame ourselves for what we can’t do. It’s what life bestowed on us after all. We can only work with what we have, and it’s best to be thankful rather than ungrateful.

Instead of self-loath and self-blame, we should give ourselves more time and compassion and fight those self-doubts!

At the end of the day, we’re all doing our best at every given moment, though “our best” vary depending on the activity and how we’re feeling at that moment.

All of us are going to make the “chickpea patties” slightly differently. Those with a “food processor” will find living easier than the rest. Those without would take longer to make it. Some people would simply skip the carrot and the onions. If you do use a carrot and don’t have a grater, it’ll take even longer to make your patties.

But all of us will have decent chickpea patties at the end – as long as we keep working on it and don’t give up.

You know what, if one batch doesn’t turn out right, we can always make another batch! The more often you make it, the better you get at it.

Most of the time, life works that way as well.

If you’re feeling down and out, I hope my little analogy makes you feel better. Leave me your comments so we can connect. And don’t forget to subscribe. 🙂