I have a confession to make: Recently, and embarrassingly often, I’ve been losing my patience. I realize this is inconceivable coming from a guy who writes about radical living and the value of acceptance, kindness and radical parenting in general — but when the Monkey has been sick and has failed to sleep for more than a few consecutive hours for most of his sixty days on Earth — meaning Mrs. CWD and I haven’t slept for more than a few consecutive hours — well, I’ll admit that my capacity for patience has been wearing thin.

I can at least take some solace in the fact that I can recognize it.

This capacity for self-awareness is powerful. Brian Mackenzie, who has made a career of working with high-speed types — athletes, big wave surfers, fighters, special operators — to manage stress, talks about the concept of “flipping the lid.” It’s the idea that you have a regulatory capacity for stress up to a certain point, where you can float within an optimal level — but once you hit your payload limit, you shift into dysregulation. Your lid flips and you go from a rational human to a grumpy monkey. It often happens to me when dealing with traffic, but more recently when there is a cacophony of wails coming from all three kiddos: one wants to “listen to Elsa” and another wants “comin’ around the mountain” and two are hungry and one wants goldfish and one doesn’t want goldfish and the Monkey is crying because he’s hungry, too, and stuffy and tired — and then Doggie starts barking because she wants to play fetch or at least get out of the house and escape the noise noise noise noise… and suddenly I find myself raising my voice, shouting to just breathe for a second — and then I recognize I’m not entirely sure toward whom the appeal is directed (but certainly to heaven and mostly to myself).1

Long-time readers know that Stoicism plays an outsize influence in my own personal philosophy. But whereas some might take a militant approach to Stoic directives — the writing of Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius being equivalent to gospel — I’ve recently made a shift in how I think about their meditations. Rather than reading Seneca’s advice “to bear trials with a calm mind” and “[rob] misfortune of its strength and burden” as a dictum, I read it instead as a self-reassurance from a man under pressure. I remind myself that the Stoics were not infallible, that they, too, were men reckoning with their own lives as best they could.

Much of this shift comes from doing more writing myself. I try to keep these essays rooted in authenticity, formed from real experiences in the woods, in the mountains, under water, or — as they have been recently — from my own inward experiences. Writing about radical living allows me to flesh out its tenets. And while I can have aspirations to be a perfect father and husband and hunter and athlete — patient, resilient, strong — I’m doomed (or blessed) to often fall short of that ideal. So I write: setting my intentions with pen and pixels, solidifying my own foundation and bettering myself for next time. Just the same as Marcus sitting down at his journal, reflecting on his own reactions to the world.

So here, again, I find myself resolving to be more patient. To better regulate my own reactions to the world and to my children — to my wife — accepting that there are inevitable downs following the ups. I remind myself that these tantrums and fits and sleepless nights, too, will pass — that tomorrow I’ll wake up with another opportunity to do better. To regulate my own state, avoid flipping the lid, and let the waves of emotion flow over and through me.

And if that doesn’t work, I can always try again tomorrow.

Of course, with near constant commotion and waning patience, finding time to prep a meal becomes difficult. So, even though the weather is slowly, diffidently, shifting toward consistent warmth, still we find ourselves breaking out the slow cooker for hands off meals. And while I’d prefer to brown and reduce and build a base for my braises prior to shifting to autopilot, last week I found myself lacking the patience for even that. So, I committed heresy and threw several still frozen short ribs, a couple of roughly chopped carrots, and a few smashed cloves of garlic in the pot, dusted them with salt and pepper, added some bay leaves, oregano and rosemary sprigs, squeezed some lemons and then dumped a bottle of white wine on top. Switched the slow cooker at 9:15 am to low and let this ride for about nine hours — the house filling with a comforting aroma by noon and resulting in a delicious, tender meal by dinnertime.2

Let this be a solace then, that even without technique or patience, you can still make a wonderful meal.

Reading the instructions above, dump everything into a slow cooker and let cook on low for 6-9 hours, depending on the physical state of the meat. You can use beef, venison, lamb, bison, or most any hearty cut here3 — if starting from frozen plan on at least nine hours, less if already defrosted.

Serve over mashed potatoes for real decadence.

So there you go, folks — “a lazy cook’s bottle of white wine braise.” Make this after a long night bracing yourself for a longer day. Paradoxically, it does require patience, but pragmatically, it requires little forethought. Enjoy that koan.

With that, I’ll leave you to your weekends. If you’re planning on curing a ham for Easter, I’d encourage you to get going on it now. These things, too, take time — and patience.

We’ll see you back here next week.