laterunner
Member
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2005
- Messages
- 245
When ‘less is more’ do more with less
Christmas is coming. While our family will enjoy eating some rarely indulged-in foods during this time, I have discovered since living back in China that even though we will have less such treats here than we would if we were in the UK, we will still tend to have too many. For me, it seems that the more treats I have the less I enjoy them. For example, the first special chocolate I eat tastes great. The second tastes perhaps almost as good, especially if it is of another kind. But if I carry on and have more soon after that, I can end up eating them ‘just because they’re there’ or even ‘just to help finish them up’. Economists call this phenomenon the ‘law of diminishing returns’, basically meaning that the more you have of something the less satisfaction it returns to you. Even if I sample a variety of sweet and savoury treats in one session I find that this is one law that’s difficult to break.
A somewhat more popular and well known expression that could be helpful to apply in such situations is ‘do more with less’, in the sense of buy less and ‘do’ more with it – savour it and enjoy it more. It’s not easy to start applying this during such festive family times as Christmas, but living here in China I have discovered during the non-festive times of year that this approach works and is worth pursuing.
Living in a country whose culture is quite alien from one’s own, as I do, makes it easier to ‘do more with less’ as not every kind of favourite food is available to you (sometimes it’s ‘available’, but not at a price you can afford). Thanks to God’s grace, I rarely miss any foods from ‘back home’ and find it quite easy to be content. I think it’s this contentment that has enabled God to occasionally brighten up my day with discoveries of some edible favourites that I had assumed I couldn’t get here. I can illustrate this by describing how God gradually upgraded my breakfast and so helped me start off each day more positively…
Several months after we moved to Kunming I discovered a brand of pot yoghurt that was thick enough to eat with a spoon. Other brands of yoghurt were runny - made for drinking through a straw. About a year later I found a brand of domestically made marmalade to my liking. Apart from not costing a fortune like the imported brands, it was refreshingly sharp and contained orange rind, while being devoid of the almost flourescent colourant normally used in China-made marmalades (anyone for Sunset Yellow or Tartrazine on their toast?!). Thankfully, a few months before I discovered this marmalade I had stumbled on a bakery in town that sold a wonderful toasting bread on which I could spread it. Each slice (it’s even pre-sliced) is square and of the right thickness to fit the few brands of toaster you can get here. In addition, the toast it makes doesn’t fall apart when you spread things on it. Toasted, it has a crunchy yet chewy texture. Most breads here are sweet and crumbly - more cake-like. While each of these finds was an instant delight in itself, together they made for an ongoing little blessing – a far superior breakfast (though I appreciate that your idea of a good breakfast may be quite different)!
Back in the UK, as in other refined consumer-oriented societies, it’s not so easy to savour such simple delights. The choice of food products (including brands & variations within a product) is overwhelming, devaluing each food item. And it’s easy to fall under the spell of the ever-present slogans: ‘treat yourself’ and ‘indulge yourself’ as ‘you deserve it’. Then at Christmas people are subtly encouraged to overindulge in treats through being made aware that by early January the shops will be full of ‘detox’ products which will supposedly purge their bodies of all the toxins they will accumulate through their festive (over)eating.
While it’s great to enjoy treats, surely wherever we are living, at whatever time of year, we should learn to be content with fewer of them, savour them more and give space for God to delight us with little extras.
‘Godliness with contentment is great gain… if we have food and clothing we will be content with that.’ 1 Timothy 6.6-8
Dec. 2007 :icon_cool:
Christmas is coming. While our family will enjoy eating some rarely indulged-in foods during this time, I have discovered since living back in China that even though we will have less such treats here than we would if we were in the UK, we will still tend to have too many. For me, it seems that the more treats I have the less I enjoy them. For example, the first special chocolate I eat tastes great. The second tastes perhaps almost as good, especially if it is of another kind. But if I carry on and have more soon after that, I can end up eating them ‘just because they’re there’ or even ‘just to help finish them up’. Economists call this phenomenon the ‘law of diminishing returns’, basically meaning that the more you have of something the less satisfaction it returns to you. Even if I sample a variety of sweet and savoury treats in one session I find that this is one law that’s difficult to break.
A somewhat more popular and well known expression that could be helpful to apply in such situations is ‘do more with less’, in the sense of buy less and ‘do’ more with it – savour it and enjoy it more. It’s not easy to start applying this during such festive family times as Christmas, but living here in China I have discovered during the non-festive times of year that this approach works and is worth pursuing.
Living in a country whose culture is quite alien from one’s own, as I do, makes it easier to ‘do more with less’ as not every kind of favourite food is available to you (sometimes it’s ‘available’, but not at a price you can afford). Thanks to God’s grace, I rarely miss any foods from ‘back home’ and find it quite easy to be content. I think it’s this contentment that has enabled God to occasionally brighten up my day with discoveries of some edible favourites that I had assumed I couldn’t get here. I can illustrate this by describing how God gradually upgraded my breakfast and so helped me start off each day more positively…
Several months after we moved to Kunming I discovered a brand of pot yoghurt that was thick enough to eat with a spoon. Other brands of yoghurt were runny - made for drinking through a straw. About a year later I found a brand of domestically made marmalade to my liking. Apart from not costing a fortune like the imported brands, it was refreshingly sharp and contained orange rind, while being devoid of the almost flourescent colourant normally used in China-made marmalades (anyone for Sunset Yellow or Tartrazine on their toast?!). Thankfully, a few months before I discovered this marmalade I had stumbled on a bakery in town that sold a wonderful toasting bread on which I could spread it. Each slice (it’s even pre-sliced) is square and of the right thickness to fit the few brands of toaster you can get here. In addition, the toast it makes doesn’t fall apart when you spread things on it. Toasted, it has a crunchy yet chewy texture. Most breads here are sweet and crumbly - more cake-like. While each of these finds was an instant delight in itself, together they made for an ongoing little blessing – a far superior breakfast (though I appreciate that your idea of a good breakfast may be quite different)!
Back in the UK, as in other refined consumer-oriented societies, it’s not so easy to savour such simple delights. The choice of food products (including brands & variations within a product) is overwhelming, devaluing each food item. And it’s easy to fall under the spell of the ever-present slogans: ‘treat yourself’ and ‘indulge yourself’ as ‘you deserve it’. Then at Christmas people are subtly encouraged to overindulge in treats through being made aware that by early January the shops will be full of ‘detox’ products which will supposedly purge their bodies of all the toxins they will accumulate through their festive (over)eating.
While it’s great to enjoy treats, surely wherever we are living, at whatever time of year, we should learn to be content with fewer of them, savour them more and give space for God to delight us with little extras.
‘Godliness with contentment is great gain… if we have food and clothing we will be content with that.’ 1 Timothy 6.6-8
Dec. 2007 :icon_cool:
