Now look - I know what you’re thinking. Is she talking about a ‘special’ pancake? Is she about to get all ‘herbal’ on our asses? Are we finally witnessing a drug-addled meltdown live on Substack after all these years?? Should we get popcorn or call the emergency services?
For the avoidance of doubt - no, good reader, I am not. Since you ask, I haven’t touched weed since inadvertently getting so high in Brooklyn many years ago that I became convinced I needed to call the Head of Legal for the company I then worked for and ask him for ”some advice”. My equally high friend had to wrestle the phone out of my hand and take me out for ice cream to calm me down. Later in the day I had to go the airport where I kept trying to surreptitiously throw my clothes away so the dogs wouldn’t smell ALL THE DRUGS (there were no dogs).
But - as ever - I digress.
Boringly, I’m actually talking about a pankcake at the other end of the spectrum - a ‘healthy’ pancake. One made of egg, banana and almond butter - devoid of anything joyous like maple syrup or chocolate chips - but oddly satisfying nonetheless. I’ve been making these for breakfast for a couple of weeks now as I attempt to walk the fine line between stopping eating crap and being a tedious person survives only on seeds and gratitude. They’re quick and easy to make - and let’s be honest, a pancake is always a hoot.
But this morning, I fucked them up.
You see, the batter for these bad boys is thick - we’re talking a drop pancake (not an English ‘flippy’ pancake). You pour them into a hot pan in a shape somewhat resembling a circle, wait a minute or two, then use a spatula to turn them over. Bear with me here - I promise I’m not attempting the write the world’s dullest food blog. Neither of us wants that.
But the flipping is very much a “shit or get off the pot” situation. A short, sharp and authoritiave flick of the wrist is required to turn that fucker over.
And this morning I hesitated.
I slid the spatula under and probed around a bit to check it was cooked. Then I slowly and gingerly turned it… at which point the whole thing broke in half, leaving a misshapen piece of brown-ish gunge where once a perfect pancake sat. Then I did exactly the same with the other two.
My life as a pancake
As I surveyed the mess of what I can only call scrambled pancake (a thing? Check out my upcoming food blog for more tips and tricks…) it struck me that I’ve spent a lot of my life gingerly turning over pancakes, unsure what to do and then ballsing them up.
I find decisions supremely difficult. What if I get it wrong? What if there’s a better option? What if I die?? What if I inadvertently create an apocalyptic herd of mutant goats intent on slaying us to create a zombie army in service to the mighty Goat Overlords?? Even when I make a decision, I can’t fully commit to it as I keep looking back over my shoulder at what might have been if I’d gone another way. Apart from the goat thing. That only has one ending.
This - of course - is an absurd way to live. And makes me a really irritating person to go out for lunch with (“damn - I should have had the falafel!”). And looking at the sad brown mess of former pancake, I realised something:
The secret to decisions is just to fucking MAKE them. Then you can at least carry on and see what’s next.
But not to make one - to um and err an think it through and revisit them - well that’s just getting you nowhere. If life is a forward trajectory, decision paralysis is like hanging around a particularly shit motorway service station. Or looking at a pan of fucked up pancakes wondering what might have been.
As if the universe were really trying to hammer home the point, I happened to read a chapter on ‘decision hunting’ in the absurdly brilliant
’s Meditations for Mortals this morning (if you like my writing, you will want to leave your spouse and marry his). He makes a compelling argument to (and these are my words not his) JUST FUCKING DO SOMETHING - suggesting that we tend to think of decisions as grand things we await and then make. Rather than just doing something small to make some progress:“Far more frequently, though, the life-enhancing route is to think of decisions as things that come along, but as things to go hunting for. In other words: to operate on the assumption that somewhere, in the confusing morass of your work or your life, lurks at least one decision you could make, right now, in order to get unstuck and get moving”
He suggests - for example - that rather than hurling your letter of resignation on your boss’s desk, the unfulfilled worker might arrange a coffee with someone who can give them some career advice. Admittedly this is not as sexy - but it is something you can do.
I, for example, am in the process of trying to create A NEW CAREER (answers on a postcard please - or in the comments - for what that should be) and am falling victim to the lure of Making A Huge Sexy Decision. I am putting endless pressure on myself to wake up one morning with a fully formed career plan that I’m ready to stick to. And - because that’s a totally insane thing to expect - I cannot make that decision. I cannot - you might say - flip the pancake.
Be brave. Be bold. Be pancake.
The truth is it’s rare to have the answer for whatever big life question you’re currently grappling. But you can usually do something. And you’ll likely feel better having done something - which might inspire you to do another thing. And then another. And another. Until you realise you’ve actually done the big change.
The great thing about this is you can’t make a wrong decision. Largely because most of them (save the dramatic job quitting) can be course corrected. But also because as humans we have an amazing ability to create a story out of where we went wrong - and how it took us to the right place. Whether this is woo woo nonsense, predeterminism or just how we’re wired - it’s all good.
So today I set you (and myself) this challenge. What can you do to flip the pancake? What issue are you poking around the edges of with a spatula, and inadvertently making it messier?
Oh and by the way I did eventually tell the Head of Legal the tale of weed in Brooklyn. He laughed a lot then said “I’m not sure what I would have done to be honest - maybe read you a bedtime story?”. And d’you know what, a calming voice reading me a story is EXACTLY what I needed in that moment. It turns out I did know what I was doing after all!*
*Please note I in no way recommend or endorse making drug-fuelled phone calls to colleagues.
Greetings team - and welcome to my series of “insights based on baked goods”. I think it’s got legs, right?
Questions, comments and career suggestions welcome… or if you’re feeling shy do give us a ‘like’.
Thank you, another banger!
I've always lived my life flying by the seat of my pants, going with my highly (nay overly) optimistic gut feelings and making decisions on the basis of how many Sunseekers I could immediately go out and buy IF it worked out. Pure fantasy based optimisim, in other words. In your parlance, flipping the pancake so hard that it went through the roof, achieved orbit and is currently passing Voyager 2....
As you push yourself to be more bold, I've spent my time on the other end of the spectrum learning to reign in my impulses which, you'll be shocked to hear, didn't always lead to the best outcome. Turns out thinking through things has its benefits. The key, as with all things good and true, is to find that delicate balance; that point where boldness is tempered by reason, and neither holds the other back.
Bon appetit!
Annie, wow, you spoke to me, personally. How do you do that when you've never met me? I've been an agonizer for as long as I can remember (which used to be a long time, but seems to be less and less as the years roll by). This page will become dog-eared very soon from my re-reading. I'm also looking into Oliver Burkeman. He sounds like someone I should be reading. Many thanks.