Marriage lessons from Indomie

At 9 am on Monday morning, I stumbled on this tweet. This prompted me to start thinking about my life before I got married and then to one of the most influential things that helped me prepare for married life.

No, it wasn't a podcast, a book, or a person. Rather it was a very unlikely source- food. In this case, Indomie (also called “noodles”) or rather, the preparation of it.

I learned such profound lessons and was able to apply them to my life and marriage. Here is how: Back in university, when I visited a friend, said friend would (out of courtesy) offer me something to eat, sometimes even prepare a meal- usually Indomie. As with most people, I had a preferred way of preparing Indomie, and I would usually ask/ insist that it was prepared that way. One particular day, I forgot to inform my host about my preferred way of preparing the noodles, and it was served. Not to be rude, I couldn’t turn down the food, so I ate, and it was one of the most delicious versions of noodles I had eaten in a long time.

From that day, I decided to try something new; I would not inform my host about my preferences; rather, I would simply let them prepare the noodles in the way(s) they knew how to. If you are picky with food, you’d know this was a serious gamble, but I did it anyway. It took a while (because I wasn’t visiting every day obvs), but this opened me up to different noodle cooking styles/ preferences from different people and, of course, tasting them. A few were wack, but most were delicious. Then, the lessons began to hit me, one after the other.

1. When I was willing to let go of my preferences, I automatically opened myself up to new things/ experiences. There are many things you will not know/ learn/ experience in life and miss out on if you keep holding on to “your way” of doing things.
2. “Your way” is NOT the only way (I am not referring to God here, so don't misconstrue this). Just as there are multiple ways to arrive at four in mathematics, such as (2+2, 5–1, 6–2, 400/100, etc.), there are also multiple ways of doing the same things. None is more correct than the other.
3. Even when you know your partner is likely wrong and might fail (or the indomie/ noodles might be rubbish), allow them to fail and learn from it. How you handle such failure with your partner and help them move on will be a precedent for many things later.
4. It is Indomie. It is not the end of the world. Only a few things need to be taken super seriously, especially in a relationship or marriage. Majority? It’s not that deep. Figure out which things they are and learn to overlook. It is really not the end of the world.
5. When the indomie comes out great? Share and celebrate the person. Be generous with compliments but more importantly? Learn how they did it. One of the ways of connecting with people is doing things how they like, especially if they don't get to do it frequently. I’d stop here.

The end.