In every situation we encounter in life, there is a sense of both known and unknown. The known is our experience, the unknown our openness and willingness to learn. Achieving a healthy balance is a key to a fruitful existence.
Recently in Damongo this balance was revealed to me in a very real way. Since I arrived, I've wanted to introduce pizza to the restaurant I'm helping to run and to the area in general, figuring it to be pretty universally popular type food and an untested market for financial growth for a Diocese short on money. I have 45 years’ experience in making pizza, including about 25 commercially. In Damongo, that would make me the expert, right? Kind of...
You see, some of the younger people here have tried pizza a few times in the bigger cities and have their own ideas of what it should be that are different than mine. When they sampled my version, I was critiqued in ways that I did not expect, and at times had to resist pushing back based upon my relative experience. However, I resisted, realizing that I'm not making pizza in Cleveland for Clevelanders. I'm making it in Ghana for Ghanaians. To be successful in this venture, as in any venture, sometimes means releasing the grip on our own ideas to make room for other, newer ones. Not abandoning one for the other, but achieving balance. That's how life works.
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