All The Tools I Never Use

It was breakfast time in our kitchen and my son was making fried eggs. Apparently I was making better over-easy, so he asked me for help. As I was flipping the eggs, the oil from the pan splattered on my shirt. It wasn’t any fancy or expensive shirt, but it was my favourite Patagonia tee, in olive- green. The ironic part was, a ready-to-use apron was hanging on the oven handle three feet away from the stove. I could have put it on. Yet, I didn’t.

Apparently, my clean apron was not the only useful tool that I had at my disposal, but barely made any use of. I had an entire collection of colorful oven mitts neatly arranged in the top cabinet, but I still burned my hands taking hot pans out of the oven. I had numerous planners scattered around the house, but I still made my schedule in my head and reviewed my commitments in my mind before going to bed. I had GPS on my phone and in the car, but I still studied my route ahead of time and relied on landmarks and my orientation skills to find my way. Why was I so bad with using tools?

I think the reasons might differ from case to case, but I suspected there might be some common root causes.

Let’s take my cooking without an apron. I guess my thinking was that for a task so small, an extra step like putting protective garment was too much hassle. I could just be careful. Clearly though, it didn’t work, as my stained shirts (the olive-green one wasn’t the first one) prove. I had to ruin my favourite shirt though in order to notice flaws in my thinking.

The problem with the oven mitts was more of a location issue. Why did I keep them in a top cabinet? By the time I remembered that I had oven mitts, let alone where they were, I already used a random kitchen towel and likely burned my fingers.

In the case of planners and GPS, I think I simply believed I shouldn’t need them. I should be able to remember things and figure things out. I was quite proud of my reliable memory and resourcefulness. I think I looked at it as a challenge. In general, it’s not a bad thing, but perhaps, it is not always a good thing either.

In one of my early yoga classes, the teacher suggested using blocks. My first reaction was: I don’t need them. I can do my Warrior III or the triangle pose without props. I resisted for a while and only caved when the teacher explained that blocks allowed for a different or deeper experience of the pose. As I eventually found out, she was absolutely right.

Thinking about all those simple but helpful tools that I had at my disposal, but which I often ignored or resisted, made me re-evaluate my approach to tools in general. I guess I viewed them as hassle and a sign of my weakness. But the thing was, tools were there to help me. And if I already had them, I should be smarter about using them: make them a habit (apron), place them strategically (mitts), choose user-friendly ones (apps, planners). After all, when used wisely, those tools can protect my shirts, and make my life easier, less stressful, or even more interesting.

This realization came quite timely. The other day my son insisted on not wearing his helmet while going for a quick bike ride. "It's just a quick ride. I know how to ride a bike and nothing has ever happened to me before," he argued. And that’s when I reminded him about my stained green shirt. And my shirt doesn’t even compare to his head!