About

Imagine yourself as a 15-year-old facing one of the biggest questions of your life - what to choose for a career. There are so many paths you can take and even more opportunities you can't wait to expose to the world - your head is spinning! When I was graduating high school, I had to make a list of colleges to apply to. But how do you pick something if you don't know what you want? It's like a kid in a candy store with chocolate, fudge, lollipops, all kinds of gum who doesn't know what they want. You imagine eating the candy bar, but then you think the lollipop will taste better and last longer than the candy bar. You know you have the money to choose one thing and it has to be the best thing that is worth every penny, so you think so much trying to weigh everything and finally make a decision.
I'm sure you can relate to my educational dilemma to some extent.

Without hesitation, I started practicing at home. I cooked from time to time, but quickly realized that I needed coaching. My third year of college began when I asked one of my professors if the college provided internships at a local restaurant. She contacted me a week later and said she had a few suggestions for me. I chose a spot at a local steakhouse, and that's where it got hard. I had to go to college early in the morning and then drive to work and close the restaurant around 11:30pm. I wore myself out mentally and physically working 6 days a week. Once again, I had to skip class at this time not because I wanted to socialize, but because I just needed to sleep due to sleep deprivation. I also moved out of my parent's house and started living with my girlfriend, which also knocked hours off my sleep schedule. This affected my mental state and my life became much more complicated than I had anticipated. On the other hand, I realized that I was in this situation myself, and there was nothing left for me to do but to take responsibility for my actions and move forward. A year had passed and I was preparing for my final exams. I couldn't wait to show off my skills to my teachers! I knew I had worked hard to earn the experience and knowledge I needed to pass the exams, and I was finally ready. I still had a job at the steakhouse, and I made quite a bit of progress there as well. I started as a prep cook and was soon promoted to line cook. It was difficult, but I earned the trust and respect of the restaurant staff, and I thought my efforts were finally starting to pay off.

But then something unexpected happened.

I was cutting up frozen salmon. You have to cut off the head and tale of the fish, then run a knife along the backbone to separate the meat from it. After that, you have to pull out the remaining bones with tweezers and slice it to the size of a fish steak. The fish was large and difficult to work with, plus when it thawed, the skin of the fish was covered in slime. We wrapped napkins around the handles of the knives so that the slime would be absorbed and to hold the knife better. This helped a little, of course, but if you had 10-15 fish to go through, the knife handle soon turned into a thick layer of slimy napkins that was hard to hold on to. So that day I had the task of cutting seven salmon and preparing them for fish steaks. While cutting the fish, the knife got stuck in the spine and my hand holding the knife slipped right onto the worn blade. I was rushed to the hospital where doctors stitched my injured fingers. The cuts were so deep that the tendons of my fingers had to be stitched as well. I spent time in the hospital and then it took many months to get my fingers mobile again. I was never able to regain full range of motion, but an idea popped into my head that later played a big role in my life and allowed me to write this article.