A Little Bit Not Delicious

Children have an amazing ability to be completely and utterly honest while being completely and utterly gentle in their honesty.

Last year, my wife and I had a group of people over for our child’s birthday.  I made a vegetarian paella.  It was our first attempt at hosting a gathering after our decision to become vegetarians.  It was almost my first attempt at a vegetarian paella.  It wasn’t my best effort ever.  Vegetable broth doesn’t have quite the same bite as chicken broth, and it certainly doesn’t have quite the same sodium content.  Bland would be a nice word to describe the dish.

We served the paella as the main dish, and we served it to adults and children alike.  Everyone was polite, telling me how good it was and could I please pass the salt, pepper, and flavor.  That’s what the adults did, anyway.  The kids…well, the kids had their own way of communicating.  Some plates had little piles of untouched paella.  Some had piles that had been picked at.  My kids ate it all.  They roll that way.

But there was one little boy in particular who ever-so-sweetly let me know that I had made a valiant attempt at cooking paella but that I’d fallen a tad short.  He looked up at me with his beautiful, wide, and expressive eyes, and sincerely said, “It’s just a little bit not delicious.”  I had to choke back a laugh in the moment, of course, but I’ve thought about what he said many times since then.  It was really a beautiful moment, in my opinion.  Here’s this little boy, looking up at this tall adult, and basically providing me with the honest feedback that nobody else felt free to offer.  No criticism intended towards the adults.  I just marvel at the sincerity of children.

I often feel as if I am adrift in a sea of professional uncertainty.  Real, constructive feedback is so hard to come by, particularly at the moment it’s needed.  Instead, it’s pent up and released once or twice a year during reviews.  It sometimes seems like it’s used as justification for why someone is receiving this rating and this compensation for their troubles.  That is not feedback that I can use to create a better me.  A little sincerity can go a long way towards supporting some of that faith that I’ve been talking about.  

“It’s just a little bit not delicious”…now that I can use.  It lifts me up.  It tells me that I am close.  It encourages me.  It gives me hope that, with continued effort, I might get it right some day.  Considering the source, I can forgive the less-than-specific criticism.  

Sometimes those pick-me-ups come from the most unexpected places.