Delayed Gratification

It's been a month, officially, since I moved to France! The one thing I have learned to develop is delayed gratification.

I know, a lot of times people rave about how efficient everything in Singapore is (if you compare to other nations in the region) but I don't know if that efficiency is helpful or not. Especially when you develop a society that has zero patience for anything.

In the past month, I've come to realise that everything is much slower here. Let's not talk about the bureaucracy. But what about everything else in life? Let me illustrate this by comparing what needs to be done to go get bread in Singapore vs in France.

In Singapore, my bread-buying journey goes like this:

Take wallet, open door, put on slippers, go down, cross to the other block, pick bread at the convenience store, pay, go home

In France (in the cold season), my bread-buying journey goes like this:

Take off home clothes, put on outside clothes, change to outside socks, take wallet and keys, put on shoes, put on coat, decide if I need a hat and scarf or not, put them on if I do, find my tote bag, open door, lock door, go down, cross to the other block(s), wait in line, tell the cashier my order, pay, take bread, go home

In France, I have to delay most of the cravings I have. I've learned that I'm not going to die if I don't have some cravings satisfied. Some of these cravings - sweets, for example - can be easily fulfilled. But because I have to do so many things before I even go out to get them, I just don't bother.

My husband and I plan our meals for the week ahead. A typical week could look like this:

I usually park my cravings under "IDEAS!!" and decide in the next week if I would like to cook it on one of the days. It's actually better this way because it gives me a chance to assess if I really want the dish and if I want to make it. Based on the menu of the week, we plan what to buy which helps to reduce waste.

Of course, both my husband and I cook without a set recipe. Most of the food we cook are "inspired" - we figure out the ingredients that goes into a recipe, we cook, we adjust to our taste and we serve. If there's too much, we eat it at the next meal. If it's too little, we bulk up with either bread or rice (the two staples that we constantly have in our house).

And all of this leads to me learning to be a little bit more patient because back in Singapore I'd just go out and eat whenever I want because I'm not waiting until the week after to satisfy my craving. Which, now that I'm reflecting on it, is wild. We are so impatient and maybe even coddle because everything is so accessible to us.

These days, I no longer purchase something impulsively because of how easily available it is. For example, when I ran into issues in Singapore, I'd look up the internet to find solutions for it, figure out I can buy it from Shopee and solve that issue. But here in France, I either look around the interwebs for the solution to the problem, compare prices, get the solution (e.g. the shelf in our bathroom which we discussed even before I moved in and finally purchased when I did) and solve the solution; OR I just live with the problem because it's just a minor discomfort that hasn't deteriorated my quality of life.

I've also learned to be more aware of time because I walk pretty much everywhere now. I take the metro or bus only when necessary (e.g. it's raining or too far out to walk to) and the car only when my husband's driving (because I can't drive on the other side of the road 😜). With all the preparation I need to do to leave the house, I need to be mindful of what time to begin getting ready before leaving the house to reach anywhere on time. And I don't wanna be one of those OTW people. I've been late a couple of times but I don't want to make a habit of it!