Pay Attention: Gordon Ramsay & Jordan Peterson's Eye.

For the past few years, I've been listening to a lot of @jordanbpeterson lectures. I love the lectures where he discusses symbols and stories that have endured throughout history that we all intrinsically know and act out. "The Collective unconscious"

Understanding the symbols & stories primarily serves to help orient you in life. But knowing them also comes with a super fun bonus. Once you begin recognizing the stories and symbols, it's super fun to spot them in works of art and everyday life.

In one of his lectures, Dr. Peterson discusses the symbolism of the eye and its place in the hierarchy in Ancient Egyptian & Mesopotamian mythology. In those myths, the eye sat atop the order. Why? Because it symbolized attention.

This is also, in part, why the eye sits atop the pyramid in the great seal of the United States.

Above all, paying attention is the most important thing. What sits in the dark festers. What we aren't aware of pulls us from what matters. The work we avoid. The unacknowledged resentments. If we don't pay attention to what's hidden, that chaos will envelop us.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on @GordonRamsay 's @KNonFOX Kitchen Nightmares. Owners unwilling to look at/confront:

-Walk-in fridges that have accumulated a lifetime of dirt

-Lazy chefs that don't do good work

-Criticisms

-Failing businesses

Willfully Blind.

In comes Ramsay. An incarnation of the eye.

He wants to taste the food. Speak to the owners. Speak to old employees. Poll the town. Check the fridge. Speak to the servers. No stone goes unturned. The eye sees all. Everything that's hidden comes out. Not all the restaurants succeed. But I think the ones that do succeed do so because they decide to open their eyes and pay attention. It can't be the publicity, because all of the restaurants get publicity.

It's easy to look at the messy kitchens & think, "how could they let it get like that" but it's better to consider what we have unconfronted in our lives that's threatening to overtake us.

What's the messy walk-in fridge in our lives, and how can we get to cleaning it? Be your own Gordon Ramsay before someone else has to be. Force yourself to look at what you've been avoiding before it blows up in your face, and suddenly you're not in control.