My very first job was learning how to cut bread.
I was working at a cafeteria in the University of Waterloo (I was in high school at the time), and on my first shift I was assigned to the sub station.
The subs we had there were 12 inches long (standard sub size), came in two different varieties (white and whole wheat), and were soft to the touch.
Once someone has chosen their desired variety of bread, the first step to making a sub, is to cut it.
Do you know what the key to cutting a sub is?
I didn’t.
A line started to form at the sub station, and it was my turn to start making subs.
I had someone beside me to teach me the ropes, and the first thing she instructed me to do was to cut the sub.
Surely, she must have thought to herself, I don’t need to show this young kid how to actually cut bread, right?
Wrong.
On my first few attempts, I absolutely butchered the bread.
I was using my right hand to cut, it was moving way too fast, and the pressure from my left hand was flattening the sub like a panini press.
The speed of my right hand and the pressure of my left, resulted in the fresh, soft sub turning into dust.
Crumbs everywhere, customers continuing to pile up, it was a disaster.
My issue was, I was using too much force.
**
A long time ago, I tried wakeboarding.
I wasn’t being pulled behind a boat, instead a few friends and I went to a wakeboarding park.
Picture a giant oval of water, with a pulley system hovering over it (also the shape of an oval), that has a series of wakeboards and wakeboard lines hooked into it. Almost like a wakeboard conveyor belt.
It was designed to be a great way for beginners to learn how to wakeboard.
You start by sitting in the water, wakeboard attached to your feet, and you get given a handlebar. The handlebar is then attached to the conveyor belt and when you feel the pull of it, you slowly stand up, and hold on for the ride.
On my first few attempts, I did manage to stand up.
Only to immediately fall over.
I was tensing my body so hard that the conveyor belt probably felt like it was trying to pull along a bamboo stick.
My issue was, I was using too much force.
**
Occasionally, I wait too long to shave my beard.
I get lazy.
When the day inevitably comes, my sink ends up with a large volume of tiny black hairs.
Gross, I know.
When I look down at the sink after I’m finished, my immediate desire is to turn on the tap at firehose-speed and blast all the hair down the drain.
Except this is not what happens.
Turning on the tap to full blast simply results in the hair being forced higher up the edges of the sink, where the surface beneath the hairs is quite dry, thereby allowing them to stick even tighter to the bowl.
So what started as a somewhat concentrated volume of hair in the center of the bowl, has now spread to a large rim of hair around the entire circumference of the bowl.
My issue was, I was using too much force.
**
The key to cutting a sub, and for probably cutting anything, is to let the knife do the work.
Think of your hands not as clamps (my original mistake), but as guardrails.
The key to getting up and staying up on a wakeboard (which I eventually found out), is to have a loose grip.
You have to let the force of the conveyor belt dissipate through your entire body, and it starts with the amount of tension in your grip.
The key to getting a concentrated volume of hair out of the center of your sink, is to turn on the tap slowly. Doing so gently releases the hair off the surface, allowing it to be hugged by the flow of water, and head to its final resting place down the drain.
**
If something isn’t working as you think it should, you might be using too much force.
Try less.
May the force be with you.