This morning, I heard another version of this familiar story that resonated with me.
A lady was having a friend’s over to cook dinner. Her friend saw her cutting the ends of the ham off before putting it in the oven and asked “Why did you cut the ends off ?”. The lady replied “My mother has always done this.”. Later that night, she got curious and asked her mom “Why did you cut the ends off every time we cook ham?”. It caught her mom by surprised and the mother replied “It’s a recipe from your grandmother, I’ve always seen her cooking it this way.” Next morning, the curiosity stuck with the mother so she phoned her mom “It’s out of the blue, but why have we always cut the ends off the ham before we put it in the oven ?”. The old lady burst out with laughter and clarified “When we first got married, your father and I had a small apartment. We had a tiny oven – so we need to cut the ends off to make it fit the oven”
A lady was having a friend’s over to cook dinner. Her friend saw her cutting the ends of the ham off before putting it in the oven and asked “Why did you cut the ends off ?”. The lady replied “My mother has always done this.”. Later that night, she got curious and asked her mom “Why did you cut the ends off every time we cook ham?”. It caught her mom by surprised and the mother replied “It’s a recipe from your grandmother, I’ve always seen her cooking it this way.” Next morning, the curiosity stuck with the mother so she phoned her mom “It’s out of the blue, but why have we always cut the ends off the ham before we put it in the oven ?”. The old lady burst out with laughter and clarified “When we first got married, your father and I had a small apartment. We had a tiny oven – so we need to cut the ends off to make it fit the oven”
Orthodoxies are all around us, some for good reasons, some for bad reasons, and some for outdated reasons.
Antidotes to Orthodoxies:
Question everything
Keep track of your assumptions
Be wary when someone tell you “it’s always been done this way”
