Change, challenge, and bleu cheese

Food is weird. Take bleu cheese. Its food you actually want to grow moldy, and it tastes like socks that have been shoved in the bottom of a seventh grader's gym locker for months. But I love it . . . now.

I didn’t when I was a kid. Not surprising, because I used to be incredibly finicky. Growing up, I subsisted on a diet of mac and cheese. On the rare occasions that we went out for dinner, my father would order bleu cheese on his salad (probably to make it less salad-y), and he would rave over it. I would give it one sniff and promptly let out a long and dramatic, “Ewwwwwwww!”

Thank god my palate has changed. Now I love the complexity and strangeness of bleu cheese, its unapologetic revelation of its strong, weird, and authentic self. “Here I am. Take it or leave it.”

What does bleu cheese have to do with life? In his book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman urges us to “develop a taste for having problems.” Adult life serves us a steady diet of change and challenge, whether we ask for it or not. We can sit there, like a toddler, mouth puckered and arms crossed, refusing what is there, or we can see difficulties as just one of the ways good complexity gets added into our lives.

And those good complexities can make us stronger and a helluva lot more interesting, because honestly, do we want our entire life to be Wonder bread?

We can “develop a taste for having problems” in all kinds of ways. A yoga mat serves up a steady flow of good problems. The practice is to meet whatever arises with steadiness and ease, so there is this robust readiness to be grounded and light, all at the same time no matter what is being asked of us.

Another option is to take the one seat on a meditation cushion, doing our best to stay with what is, witnessing whatever arises with a curious and compassionate mind. From there, we get to choose what we allow in. Not many of us would add brussel sprouts to our chocolate chip cookies, because it would ruin what is otherwise delicious and sweet. Meditation can give us that same insight into our thoughts. It’s the chance to choose: “Am I going to allow this painful memory or that unhelpful habit to overpower this fresh moment, right here and now?”

We could also try something new, something we suck at. The idea is that we commit—to showing up, knowing full well that problems will arise. Our task, then, is to figure out how to work through the challenges as they come, which gives us the temperament, if not the skills, to do that in other situations.

What a thing to devote ourselves to—developing a taste for problems. But since change and challenge are always on the menu, this is our chance, to make it intentional. To make ourselves more vibrant and robust, ready for our own unapologetic revelation of our strong and weird selves. “Here I am. Bring it.”

Live light, y’all.

If you’d like to join Betsy Johnson on a yoga mat, check out her practices at willowyogaminnesota. com. Or if you’d like to listen to one of her meditations, you can find her on Insight Timer.