Maneuver around obstacles

While developing flexibility & quick wits.

Hello hello, friend.

A new month that’s upon us (and that started pretty rough for me).

This time I bring you a story mixed with a lesson and practical outcome.

Let’s get on with it.

Main quest 🛡

Sometimes things go the way you want them, other times they just “happen”.

And in others, they go plain wrong. Like when people say “waking up on the wrong side of bed” (but in a generalized fashion).

This month started pretty much in that way. An “undesirable” situation, to put it lightly.

Why?

Last Tuesday (the 3rd) many transporters went on strike because the price of diesel was raised. Many of the main roads were blocked and some towns got completely disconnected. This resulted in dairy and perishable foods not being picked up and not reaching the markets for days.

(You can imagine how dire the situation got after 3 days.)

In case you don’t know it yet, I’ve been running a small milk production operation with my father this year. So when he has told that on Tuesday the milk was not going to be picked up… let’s say he didn’t take it particularly well.

I told him it was no problem, we could take the milk and store a part of it for consumption and the other part turn it into cheese.

Also, thanks to an idea from the worker, we did the whole milk curdling process in canteens (instead of using all the pots in the kitchen).

Instead of worrying about external events is better to be proactive and get working on potential solutions. So, my father went and build a wooden frame for pressing the curdled milk and separate it from the whey.

We repeated that process for 3 days straight.

Unmolding the previous day's cheese, cleaning the place and preparing it to press the current day's cheese.

That was a temporary solution. But eventually the produce would start piling up and would go to waste. So I had an impromptu cheese making and preservation course. (Thank God for the Internet and Supercharged Learning.)

On Friday, my father was told the milk would be received again but we had to bring it by ourselves.

He asked a friend to help him carry the one from that morning and the previous afternoon. Meanwhile I was taking the cheese from the brine and preparing it for storage.

(And in case you’re wondering how much we ended up making…)

That’s just from 2 days.

Moral of the story: (I think there are a couple morals here.)

Developing your own learning skills is not only to pick up a few cool hobbies, have stuff to talk about in social gatherings, improve your career (or get an entirely new one).

It can mean the difference between being helpless not knowing what to do in a emergency situation and coming out on top unaffected until things normalize again.

It’s like the saying about when life give you lemons…

But in this case:

When life leaves you on your own with a bunch of milk that will get spoiled, you give some of it to all animals, double your own consumption, and then use the rest to make several cured cheeses.

Experiments 🧪

I extended the experiment of shifting the sleep schedule much earlier than usual.

Weirdly enough, it worked fine for a week but then my body started showing signs of tiredness and onset illness. That coupled with the fact that the past weekend, my older sister and her family came to visit (because we had prepared a birthday surprise for her).

It made me feel like sickness was fast approaching. To combat that I went back to the fundamentals, good food and good rest. On Monday I was feeling feeble but on Thursday I was already back to my normal self.

What this means…

Sometimes you need much more time for a routine to stick or for giving something a honest try (like a type of diet, or exercise modality).

To consider 🤔

Have you had a time when you tried a new activity/habit and you thought you nailed it but without giving it enough time for it to really sink in? What was your experience like?

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That’s all for this week.

I hope you had a much better previous week than I did.

And that you start this new one in a more powerful way.

Take care and talk soon.

Juan.