Burger Time!

I love this arcade game called Space Invaders. it is quite a classic, and i am sure many of you out there know about it. Now for many years of my life, because i am quite a visual person and think in pictures, i have pictured myself to be somewhat like that lone spaceship at the bottom of the screen, quite literally exposed and vulnerable to an attack at any time by the invaders advancing from above. I felt like there was nothing i could do to control it, and life was one big fight, trying to fend off invaders, and you never really know when they would attack.

I have come a long way from there, but recently, i came across a client who had suffered a series of 'attacks' after another throughout her life. the way she fought back brought into my mind the image of a century egg. Now a century egg is a kind of chinese food delicacy, which in its raw form, is a duck egg which has an ugly straw encrusted layer of mud covering its shell. inside though, is the most exquisite, tender and, interestingly, black coloured (from a fermenting process) egg flesh. this client tried to appear 'tough' to her perpetrators, by purposely doing 'tough' things. but as we all know, that off-putting tough exterior of the egg is nothing but a brittle and weak shell, that actually covers the real exquisite egg inside. so she was actually making it even more obvious that she was brittle and weak by putting up a tough muddy crust, try as she did to achieve otherwise.

another funny game i found at the arcade is hilarious - it is called Burger Time, where this little chef person runs around trying to stack meat patties and cheese and tomato in order to make a hamburger. but whenever the chef gets threatened by the giant evil sausages, he can thwart them by throwing a dash of pepper at them! This is that funny game i played! (note the twisted evil sausages...ooooh)

I liken this tactic to what the lone spaceship in space invaders does when he gets a special point and becomes temporarily invincible against the attacks. reseach has shown that people who tend to think that a negative event is specific, non permanent and externalise it are happier people. that is, if your boss criticises you, it is better to think that he is only angry at you for that specific problem, he will not always criticise you, and that the problem is caused by a host of other extenuating factors other than yourself. it is a bit like throwing pepper at sausages or having an invincible layer to protect yourself.

The century egg client saw my point. She agreed to let go of her put-on toughness, and just shine and show others the exquisite 'delicacy' that she is. Thus she is accepting her own frailties, opening to others, and experiencing life instead of fighting it.

And what a beautiful thing that is, quite like the lovely century egg in the image below (you can tell that this is a favourite food of mine!)


For those of you out there who are still that lone spaceship, I share your loneliness and fear, but if you want to escape from evil sausages, have a think about letting go of your brittle fragile crust.

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" ~C. G. Jung~

"Century eggs are best eaten with a dip of fresh red chilli sauce"~unknown food connoisseur~

You may find a recipe for making your own century eggs here :P

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