Life's hidden combos: smashburgers and learning while walking in nature
My favorite burger is my own. That sounds a bit like bragging and usually I am less interested in food I've cooked by the time it's ready, but some combos are just that good. For me, a smashburger (inspired by Kenji @ SeriousEats) IS that good.
I've made them at least once a month for five years now and they still deliver. Juicy, meaty, cheesiness with a crunchy textural accent from lettuce, onion, pickle and some mayo to add moisture and meld the flavors! The power of these things combined is far greater than ingredients. I think it tastes how I imagined a hamburger ad to taste.
I love the combo that is the smashburger!
Another combo that has brought me a different type of value is light exercise in nature while learning via audio. There are so many podcasts and audiobooks on all different topics that I never run out of fascinating things to listen to. However, finding time for this is difficult for me. I can't do it in the house due to distractions or being kind of rude to my kids and I am a stay at home father so I don't have a commute.
After first learning to value myself enough (another topic for another day) to dedicate time away from other responsibilities I found that each of the three elements of this combo were valuable to me.
The light exercise made my body feel good and it started to tell myself a story that "I am the type of person that enjoys walks outside."
Being outdoors lifted my spirits by feeling the sun and smelling flowers and hearing the sound of the river.
Listening to something that I could learn from made my mind feel valued, stimulated, inspired, and challenged.
All three of these things were things I wasn't able to make time for alone, but together find them so significant that if I haven't done it in a few days I start to crave it.
By the way, it loses its magic for me when I try to listen to something for the purpose of learning and do heavier exercise. Music or a good fiction can be a great distraction from the pain in that case.
It doesn't ever look exactly the same.
Sometimes I walk, sometimes I ride a onewheel, sometimes I borrow my daughter's scooter, sometimes I wear a rucksack.
It can be just on my street, around my neighborhood, to a park, along the river, downtown, or somewhere new while traveling.
Recommendations for listening: My favorite podcast is Against the Rules by Michael Lewis. The Tim Ferriss Show seems to be shifting away from business and more towards personal issues like mental and emotional health, which I love. Some of my favorite guests are Brene Brown, James Clear, Jane McGonigal, and Cal Newport. I really enjoyed Michael Schur's layman's version of philosophy in his audiobook How to Be Perfect.
