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| Hey, look, it's Jennifer Aniston practicing Tapas! |
It seems that there are some pretty badass ways to observe “Austerity”. Some people
go barefoot for a period of time (not so easy to do in wintertime!). Some people refrain from talking for a period
of time (not so easy to do when you’re a teacher!). Some people decide to eat simple,
easily-digested food (which also happens to be pretty bland). In fact, a great number of austerity tactics
centered around food and diet, so I chose to utilize a little more discipline
with my eating habits this week (ha ha ha! "disciplined" eating during a week where I had dinner and drinks out with friends, and a huge Chinese New Year's eve dinner party planned)
I am a huge multi-tasker, and one
of the things that I’ve become accustomed to is reading while eating. In the morning, I read the paper during
breakfast. At lunch, I’m usually reading students’ papers or our mail. At dinner, I read other things like
magazines, catalogs, even books. My mind
isn’t concentrating on the quantity or quality of the food I’m eating (no wonder I'm having trouble losing weight). Eating almost becomes mindless, because my
mind is focused on something else. Not only that, it's incredibly RUDE. I’m
not enjoying my dinner company or joining in with friendly dinner-table conversation. Am I a dysfunctional eater? I need more discipline, and decided that this
would be an appropriate step in the right direction.
This act of treating meal-time
with more discipline has not been easy; at every meal I had to consciously remove
reading material from the table before I sat down to eat. Sometimes, I caught myself reaching for some reading material when I was having a snack. It turns out, this is a terrible, deeply-ingrained habit I'm dealing with. When I sit down to eat, I start reading without even realizing what
I'm doing. I need to snap out of it, and
with discipline. As the week draws to a
close, this is one of those austerities that I need to continue to attend to. Once I get used to this simple
austerity, perhaps I can work on more serious ones.
"The ultimate practice of Tapas: Love yourself and your life exactly as it IS. Change nothing, but live with more presence and consistency." - Gaia Flow Yoga
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