Enjoy & Appreciate

It's the festive season of the year!
Are you busy getting into the mood to close the year with a bang
and celebrate this festive season?

At this time of the year, I seem to observe more and get more retrospective.

Just last weekend, I went with my elder daughter to a nearby hawker centre to have lunch.
For those who do not know what a hawker centre is,
it is a place with many stalls where cooked food is sold,
by the stall vendors or hawkers – we call them in Singapore.

So, my daughter queued up to buy from our favourite noodle stall
while I found an empty table for our lunch.

You may be asking now – why is the author talking about such mundane stuff?
Well, precisely!
It was in such a mundane setting that I got certain revelations!

I thought to myself,
why is the queue for this stall always so long, compared to other stalls?
The cooked noodles are of average standard.
Why? Then it dawned on me…

1) Their food is value-for-money because they give a bigger portion of noodles,
more food ingredients and their soup tastes nice.

2) They are sincere normal hardworking folks making a simple honest living.
They start work before 4am and start preparing and serving hot food to hungry customers (us!)
You can feel their sincerity in the food they serve.
I appreciate them and the lunch that they prepared for us.

3) They have been around a long long time.
I had been eating their noodles since I was young.
The stall is now managed by the son who is also the current cook.
His wife is his able assistant
There is a sense of nostalgia and familiarity when I eat the noodles nowadays,
while telling my daughter that I was eating the noodles from this same stall when I was at her age.
How time flies…

My daughter enjoying her lunch

As you can see, through a normal lunch, we can find tips for successful everyday living:
A) Providing and adding value to people's life
B) Be sincere
c) Be consistent, stay in the game and you will have people who appreciate you.

Yes, I had an enjoyable lunch and appreciate the hawker couple for their food and lessons/insights gained.
So, can you see that a simple lunch can also provide valuable lessons to us?

How and what will you do differently in your daily life?

Have an enjoyable and wonderful festive season!