Beans and Spaghetti can be the Breakfast of Champions too!

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Published by Rachelle Disbennett-Lee
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
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When I was in Australia, one of the things that struck me was that most restaurants had beans and spaghetti on the menu for breakfast. All of the breakfast buffets where I ate also included beans and spaghetti. When I first saw this, I thought, "Yuck, who would eat beans or spaghetti for breakfast? And besides, everyone knows that beans and spaghetti are not breakfast foods anyway."

Then I realized, "Who was I, the breakfast police?" Breakfast food isn't a moral issue. There is no right or wrong. My experience does not include eating such food for breakfast, although I do have to admit to an occasional cold piece of pizza from time to time. That does not mean that eating spaghetti or beans is wrong or weird or anything else. It just is. Although the cereal companies would like us to believe that wheat, oat, and bran cereal are the only breakfasts of champions, many foods can be breakfast foods.

What I realized is that when we are not used to something or have never been exposed to something, we can get trapped in the idea that it isn't right. Our judgments set in and we make the other people wrong because they do something different. The truth is it is just different. Making things right or wrong leads to the concept of better and worse and then to the feelings of superiority. When we realize that other cultures have their own ways and it isn't better or worse than our way, it is simply different, we can open up to the experience. And perhaps even learn something.

Coaching

I have never liked oatmeal, so when I was young my grandmother used to fix me rice for breakfast. Many of my friends thought that was really strange, but I loved rice. My friends just had never experienced it, so therefore they judged it as strange. Just because we have never tried something before doesn't make it strange. It makes it a new experience. If we can approach other cultures with the perspective that it is a new experience and drop all judgment, we will expand our horizon of experience. New experiences bring new awareness and knowledge. And once we begin to appreciate the experience for what it is, we can begin to better appreciate the diversity of thoughts and ideas that others bring to the breakfast table of life.

What do you have for breakfast? Ever try beans and spaghetti?

Daily Success Formula

New Experience + Awareness + Willingness to Learn = Greater Understanding

Quotes

"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." Konrad Lorenz
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll