eat the cold porridge
‘You must eat the cold porridge’ he told me once. It’s a Chinese expression. I stopped what I was doing and stared at him. I thought - who did he share a flat with out there? Goldilock and the Three Bears??
The way he explained it, eating the cold porridge means working at something for so long that when you get home there’s nothing left to eat but cold porridge. That’s how you get good at something. That’s how you get good at anything. You eat the cold porridge. You work at it when others are playing, you work at it when others are watching television. you work at it when others are sleeping. To become a master of something, you must eat the cold porridge.
And I tried hard to understand. But I can’t help it. Somehow I got into my thick head that eating cold porridge means being in a time of suffering. Living through hard days, months and years because you have no choice.
That’s not what he meant at all. He meant giving up comfort and pleasure for a greater good. He meant deferring gratification for some distant goal. Eating the cold porridge now so you will have something better tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Or the day after that. It has nothing to do with Goldilock and the Three Bears.
One for my baby - Tony Parson
Thehealthinspector: Hence, my friend, from now on, I will eat the cold porridge.
