Do.

Ari Weizweig contemplates the lessons that a life in food has bestowed on him ...

Working with artisan food is, as it ought to be, incredibly humbling. No matter what we do, problems will happen, flavors will change, imperfections will abound, seasons will still shift. I learned a long time ago that to get dinner for six out to a table successfully requires an amazing amount of things to go as they should, and dozens of people (including me) to do our jobs well. To have the salt right on every dish when it’s cooked to order, to time all six main courses, appetizers, drinks, and desserts—all of which are coming from different stations; for the host to greet with the right energy, the bartender to get the garnish just right in every cocktail, and the food runner to carry the plates. That doesn’t even count the work of the baker, the brewer, the farmer, and the fisherperson. The food world taught me how small a presence each of us are in the world, how the world revolves—but never around us. As Michael Gelb writes, "True humility emerges from a sense of wonder and awe. It’s an appreciation that our time on earth is limited but that there’s something timeless at the core of every being. Embracing humility liberates us from the egotism that drives both perfectionism and self-sabotage, opening us to a deeper experience of self-worth."

... and the transformation he continues to realize ...

It really was just luck that I came into cooking for a living, but I know enough to know that there’s more to the story than just good fortune. Doors open, but more often than not, most of us—me included—find a wealth of good reasons not to walk through them. I could easily have fallen into the unhealthy version of the food business that’s getting so much bad press of late. Or I could have just quietly kept my head down and “done my job,” stayed for a year or so, and then gone back to Grad School like my mom wanted me to. I had any number of advantages that my middle-class, Jewish, learning-focused family afforded me. But still, as Dr. Angela Duckworth writes, “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.”

You will all pretty surely have heard the Zen saying, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.”