My daughter, Michelle, starts her first post college job this month. She was supposed to start last fall, but as with most of life, it got postponed until now. She’s been home since March when she cut her senior trip short, flew home, and finished her college degree in her childhood bedroom. I’ve loved having her home, but she’s had some, not surprising, challenging moments. Most 23-year-olds don’t want to live with their parents, particularly during a pandemic when their social life is very limited.
Michelle is not known to enjoy being bored. She has sufficiently tortured her family since childhood whenever she is bored. These last few months haven’t been all that different. She did finish a coach training program, but beyond that her choices were limited as to how she could fill her time prior to starting her “real” career. At the peak of her boredom, and admittedly testing my patience, Michelle decided to set up a challenge. The challenge would be to “Julie and Julia” her way through Chrissy Tiegen’s Cookbook, “Cravings” and to do so by posting daily on TikTok.
If you don’t know what any of that means, let me break it down. “Julie and Julia” is a great movie about a blogger who cooks her way through Julia Child’s famous cookbook. If you haven’t seen it, it’s very good and worth your time. Chrissy Tiegen is a famous model/influencer who wrote the cook book, “Cravings.” It’s filled with fun, regular food and so far every recipe has been great. TikTok is a social media platform, popular with the younger crowd comprised of videos under 1-minute in length about almost anything you can think of.
Finding A New Passion—TikTok Fame Not Required
Anyway, my daughter decided to cook her way through the cookbook, videotape herself, and as she said, “get famous on TikTok.” None of that really mattered to me. I just wanted her to feel some sense of purpose and to stop complaining about being bored. And thus, the Julie/Julia/Cravings/TikTok challenge began. What an adventure it has been!
My daughter goes to the grocery store almost daily, which is beyond phenomenal because I despise the grocery store with a fiery passion. She cooks us delicious meals, which is even more phenomenal in that I don’t really enjoy cooking. She videotapes herself cooking and then leaves the kitchen looking like an autopsy had been performed in it. That’s fine because I don’t mind cleaning up after I’ve been fed by someone else. Michelle has become somewhat famous on TikTok with over 50,000 followers after only a couple of weeks.
During this dark pandemic winter, find something that excites you and motivates you to get out of bed and greet the day. #boredom #hobbies #passion #pandemic #COVID Click To TweetI’m not sure if there is a moral or a lesson to this story. It seems that we all want to keep life interesting and challenging. If our environment isn’t offering that, maybe we need to make it happen ourselves. I’m not necessarily recommending that you decide to cook a whole cookbook or get famous on TikTok, yet I am recommending that through this very dark winter, you find something that excites and motivates you. Something that makes you excited to get out of bed and to keep your brain stimulated and challenged.
Maybe you have the next great TikTok storyline and the world is just waiting to see what you have to offer. Or maybe your kitchen is looking a bit too clean, so a wild cooking challenge is just what you need to get you through this time. Whatever it is, get off your couch and make it happen. Not only will you feel better, but those around you will enjoy not seeing you so unhappy.
By the way, if you’re on TikTok, you can find my daughter @michkap1.
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC