A look at the type of life the restaurant industry can create
[listen]
[read, with curiosity]
Why does the industry reject us when we finally get our shit together?
We hear it from chefs all the time - they sober up, straighten out, and start taking real responsibility for their lives. Shortly after, the industry begins pushing them away in not-so-subtle ways. Friends and coworkers start resenting them and taking it out in (often not so)subtle jabs at their newfound contentment with life or quantifiable success in a particular aspect of self mastery (be it fitness, finances, romance, etc). Why do we abandon our own shortly after they finally manage to grab a firm hold on their own lives?
Fit In or Fuck Off.
This is the definition of workplace toxicity.
Most who enter the professional kitchen do so in a state of fear or anxiety about one or more parts of their life. The restaurant industry welcomes and encourages self-destructive habits, thoughts, and actions. It also gives a readily-acceptable purpose to those who are feeling lost in their lives. It provides a path, and relieves you of the burden and the choice of deciding what you want your path to actually be.
Kitchens mainly attract those who have a need for instant gratification and quantifiable measures of "success" or "failure" in their lives. The professional kitchen has a top-down, pyramid structure that maps out the way to ascend the ranks clearly and concisely. Show up, put your head down, and do what you’re told. Follow the arbitrary rules. Don’t make waves. Don’t question your superiors. Give up your life and become a slave to the industry, and convince yourself that you love every part of it - and one day, you might make $60,000 a year running a nice little neighborhood restaurant. It provides a clear path to comfort through the guise of hard work. It is, in essence, modern indentured servitude.
We HATE these chefs as bosses - the ones who played by the rules, and now it’s 20 years later and they’re angry, bitter, and resentful about everything. They drink like fish, they eat like shit, and they haven’t had a vacation or a day off since they were on summer break the last time they actually attended school. They realize that something is missing from their lives - yet they don’t take the time to look inward and actually figure out WHAT it is. Instead, they turn into authoritarian nightmares - yelling, screaming, and belittling their staff, projecting this existential insecurity onto anyone who crosses their path until they push everyone away, leaving them lonely and depressed. Maybe you've even found yourself becoming this type of a chef - I know that I went through it for a few years. In retrospect, it was miserable. Our industry is stuck in this loop of hurting the people below us - because we were hurt by our superiors when we were at their level.
It's the way that the industry always has been.
But is it the way the industry always needs to be?
Serious question:
Do you find yourself resenting and rejecting happiness?
Do you somehow always find a way to destroy the good things that come into your life?
Have you ever asked yourself why? Most people haven't.
Do you not feel like you deserve to be happy?
What part of your past are you currently punishing yourself for over and over again?!
You are allowed to make mistakes if you were ignorant through no fault of your own. Being ignorant is not a bad thing. Being ignorant is neutral and completely normal. Everyone grows up with different access to information. Being malignant, however, is another topic entirely. Every person you meet has the chance to teach you something about life. Being different is what makes us all interesting. There is so much knowledge in the world that even in a million lifetimes we wouldn't be able to understand a fraction of it. It is fascinating to hear other peoples' stories - each encounter provides more life XP, more general knowledge, more understanding, more possibility for the direction of your own life.
More knowledge leads to more informed decision making.
More informed decision making leads to better life choices.
Better life choices lead to a better life.
Have your own adventure - don't live someone else's story.
Don't be scared. You're smart enough to handle it.
Right now, there are a handful of chefs in the world who have found the existence of possibility and embraced it fully. These are the true revolutionaries - the ones who walk their own path. The ones who follow an idea from a crazy pipe dream to radically changing the course of how we experience and define food. These are the leaders found in many of the restaurants gracing the world's 50 best list or Chef's Table - I can say this with confidence, because I have worked for 3 of them and met many others.
These chefs do not yell. Their kitchens are intense, yet silent and focused. These chefs lead with true inspiration - they challenge their staff to pay attention to the little things and to always BE BETTER. They challenge their (right hand) staff to challenge themselves, to question everything, to experiment, to pursue knowledge ruthlessly. These chefs are the ones that most of us actually aspire to be - they fascinate and enrapture the food world by simply existing. They speak another language. They live in another mindset.
They feel, and their food reflects that.
Perspective: If you're mocking me in your head right now, it's most likely because you secretly don't think that you could learn how to cultivate that inner resilience in yourself (...or it came so naturally to you that you can't believe anyone could not know it). Have compassion. Be aware of your privileges and your strengths. Be aware of the areas in which you can improve.
The sad irony of this is that we all have the capacity to be the next revolutionary, but few will actually take the time to look for their own path. Feeling is a concept that has become utterly terrifying in an internal world controlled by fear. We have hardened ourselves to the point where we don’t even know what feeling feels like any more - any time an actual feeling comes through, we treat it as an ailment and a pain rather than approaching it with curiosity and understanding. We numb ourselves into a state of complacency with vices and medications instead of understanding the value in the act of allowing ourselves to physically feel whatever comes up. We stop asking why. We become comfortable. Life becomes predictable. We surround ourselves with other cooks and friends who see the world through our lens of fearful perception.
You are a sum of the 5 people you spend the most amount of time with.
Take an objective look at them - is that what you envision for your future life?
Whatever your version of a better life is, it's probably really far from what's seen as possible in the world you currently live in - and it probably sounds outrageous if you've never known anyone who's actually done it. There's a pretty solid chance that no one in your life has ever shown you a concrete example of hope or true possibility, so its existence doesn't actually feel real - it's just this type of intellectually understood concept rather than an actually attainable mindset or sensory experience.
If you've never physically felt possibility, it's like finding your kid or your pet (or your cell phone, or your wallet) after a period of panic when you thought you lost them in a crowd.
It's a whole body somatic sensation of gentle vibrations of gratitude that becomes your default physical state.
A conscious mindset shift into possibility can change your entire approach to life.
Embracing possibility is a radical alteration to your life - it quite literally thrusts you into a world of WAY MORE responsibility. You probably won't know too many people there (and you'll struggle to connect with them) at first, and you'll often be tempted to go back to the way things were - because even though things were terrible, at least you fully understood them. It becomes easy to just kind of exist on autopilot, freeing yourself from the responsibility of actually making an important choice in life and the potential guilt that comes from making a choice we perceive as "wrong" (and no, surface level choices about how we accessorize ourselves or what we wear or drive are not what I mean - I mean the bigger choices, like "what truly excites me about life" and "what kind of person do I want to be?").
Being a victim is easy. It's never your fault. You're like this shitty old hackeysack getting kicked around by everyone who comes across your path, and you don't really understand why you're getting screwed over all the time or what you did to deserve this. Can you ever catch a fucking break? It fucking sucks to feel like you have no control over your life, like no matter what you do it's not going to work out anyway, that nothing actually matters because you're never going to be able to make a good decision ever again.
If you don't really understand my writing, try picturing it in your head like a movie.
Go on your own knowledge acquiring quest. It leads to some truly wild places.
When you come across someone or something that you've never encountered, ask yourself "What's this? Do I actually like it or am I conditioned to like it? Do I like this because I believe others will like me or respect me if I do? Why do I like it? Do I want more or less of this in my life?"
To acquire things and people that you like in life, first you need to accept that you actually like the things that you honestly enjoy deep down inside, even if they're not mainstream or widely accepted or "cool" at the moment in your world. If you don't know what you like, you need to get out and experience new things and new people and new activities, perhaps even new ways of thinking about life or different ways of living in the world - begin to pay attention to the way you feel while you are doing them. What comes up? Do all new experiences trigger fear or panic, or do they fill you with excitement and curiosity? Try to really understand why someone else might enjoy these things. Decide if you like it or not based on open-minded personal experience.
Next, you need to ask yourself if the things you like actively hurt another person - physically or emotionally. If they do, choose another path and ask yourself why you feel drawn to violence. What subconscious need does it fulfill? Is it a need to be respected or seen or taken seriously? There is no justification for hurting another. Don't become The Asshole. It's not something to be proud of. Don't give up and become an NPC in your own life.
Don't write a shitty life story.
Take control of what happens to you. Life sucks when you're a victim of circumstance, and I speak that from personal experience.
There is a way out.
You deserve better.
It's up to you to imagine what "better" looks like.
It's different for everyone.
That's the beauty of life.
The restaurant industry can get really dark. That's why a lot of us are drawn to it. We can sense that most of our coworkers are also going through some really rough stuff in their lives, even though we don't really talk about a lot of it. Can you imagine what the industry would look like if we helped each other out instead of tearing each other back down? We need to talk about our experiences and listen to each other so that we all learn from our collective mistakes.
The more we know, the more we know how to avoid.
The more we know how to avoid, the easier life becomes.
Tell yourself the truth, always.
People start to care about you when you start to care about them.
People start to trust you when they feel that you trust in yourself.
People start to like you when they see that you genuinely like yourself.
Authenticity is a superpower. Teach yourself how to find it.
[explore]
© 2019
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