Essence of Life
The Rice Noodles
Love simply and unconditionally is lesson one, appreciate each handmade noodle that is the heart of this exquisite soup. What am I talking about? I watched an anime on Netflix called The Flavors of Youth. It goes over three different stories; the names of them are The Rice Noodles, The Small Fashion Show, Love in Shanghai. I believe these stories tie each flavor of life together; I am just happy that it starts with soup. I must say that soup is my favorite meal. Like in the first story called The Rice Noodles, I love soup and all the love that comes in the bowl. You can’t make a pot of soup without love, but you can’t live life without love. There are so many traditions that come with love. Like the young man in this story, he had the tradition with his grandma to eat soup with her every day at the shop that was right next store. Even when the shop was gone, no matter where they would have to go, he continued to eat the same soup.
What does this all mean? And what will it teach us? Well, it means that even in grief, we must keep those memories alive. We must love those memories unconditionally.
It took me back to all the memories that I had with my Abuela; we knew how to love simply. She gave me tradition, which is something to be kept and always to be appreciated.
So, what should we learn and take away is this, to continue to savor each sip, to consume the love it gave to you even in the brink of sadness appreciate the little things, because it will be missed.
The Small Fashion Show
Beauty is everything!! Everything has to look presentable, even our lives. We don’t like telling our truth about how our life is. You see, as human beings, we are told that you must always present your self as if someone is watching, but that is it, we watch, we don’t listen. We make our lives out to be a small fashion show of all the perfect parts of our lives, the fact that we think that is the beginning of our problem. We live separately from ourselves just for other’s approval; just like the hypocrites we boast as we pray, we show the falseness of what our souls are. Our souls have no beauty but have the authenticity that our outward appearance can only wish it could have.
Why must we go by beauty to live our true selves? Once Adam and Eve found themselves to be naked in front of God, they hid, how many times do we try to hide our nakedness from God? Is it all worth the trouble?
Love in Shanghai
Love as motivation can lead to success, but what do you do when you love so much that you are filled with fear. Fear of it being one-sided, fear that it is mutual. Pridefulness is what stands between us and how we are meant to be.
It happens with your relationship with God all the time. How many times is love only coming from one side? Just like Judas, we feel unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness for our actions. That is why we should let love be our motivation to be the people that God made us be.
So, here is what I learned from these three stories: I have learned that we must appreciate the small things in life that will impact us forever, we must also not be ashamed of our truths no matter how hard they are we should stay free and open with them, the last nut not least we should always have LOVE as our motivation to be our truest selves.
That is what will bring us not only success but eternal life in heaven. Isn’t that where we all want to be. To me, these are the flavors of life.