I like food. So, when it came down to deciding whether my wife or I would have the cooking duties, I volunteered myself. 

It’s been about seven months since I became the family chef. I have learned new recipes, ruined some meals (I can never seem to get cornstarch to thicken my sauces) and have created my own recipe which I have dubbed as The Mixture. 

As time has passed and my skills broadened, I have realized life is a lot like cooking. Specifically, there are three life lessons I have learned that cooking demonstrates. 

There are so many recipes out there to choose from, much like us college students have many choices of careers to choose from. Each recipe requires a certain skill set to create. If you aren’t good at grilling, then you should probably stay away from grilling pork chops and potatoes. You may, however, be an inherent master at throwing together spices for ribs and knowing how to cook said ribs in the oven. It’s similar to choosing a major in college. You might not be good at writing, but you may be superb at memorizing and applying mathematical equations. 

Cooking also shows that you can choose the same path as others but have your career or life turn out differently. There are many recipes for chicken and rice and many engineering majors out there. How you choose to sprinkle in red crushed peppers or how you are an experienced and talented writer makes the recipe and you vastly different than many others.

Cooking shows that a couple of simple mistakes does not mean the final product is ruined, but too many will. You might have under-cooked the chicken a little or charred the asparagus too much, but overall the grilled meal of chicken, asparagus and potatoes turned out pretty well. The same idea goes with college. You might have failed that one test, but for the rest of the class you worked hard and got a B. 

On the opposite side, if you fail multiple tests, then there is a good chance you won’t pass the class. The comparison in cooking is burning everything. That meal is not going to taste very good. The best you can do is learn from your mistakes and push on.

Cooking and real-life have many parallels. Both do not have a definitive way of accomplishing what you want to do. There are ups and downs, but if you keep working, try your best and learn constantly, everything will turn out all right.