When Life Forgets to Press the Button
It was one of those days that felt like a sitcom episode written without a script. You know, the kind where the main character thinks she has everything under control, only to discover she forgot the most important part: literally pressing the “cook” button on the rice cooker. Yes, that was me. And yes, the rice remained uncooked until it was too late, and my guest left with an empty stomach but a full care package of fried cassava and tofu. To make it worse (or funnier, depending on your sense of humor), the boiled eggs I packed for our guest weren’t even fully cooked. Turns out our shiny new egg maker wasn’t as foolproof as we thought. The yolks were still runny, which would have been fine if we were making ramen, but less ideal as a polite snack offering. LOL.
The guest wasn’t actually mine. My husband invited my eldest daughter’s best friend for a free mentoring session. Except my daughter wasn’t home; she was stuck in class all day. So it was just the three of us, me half-present in the kitchen, them deep in a techy chat about… well, something involving snacks and startups. I only half-listened while making spring rolls with leftover bean sprouts. Then came the rice cooker incident, and the universe reminded me that life has no mercy for multitaskers.
And yet, the day turned out beautiful. After lunch-that-wasn’t-lunch, my husband and I ended up dozing off by the window, lulled to sleep by rain and wind. We woke up just in time for the cleaners to show up and clean our apartment for 2 hours. Then later when I enjoyed my reading session while listening to jazz by the window, hubby brought ice cream after picked up our daughter from campus. At night, we binged Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens movie that stitched together the whole Ratu Ratu Queens Netflix series we had just finished last weekend. And of course, we topped it off with batagor ordered online, because why stop at one if it’s on flash sale? Four packs under fifty thousand felt like winning a mini lottery.
Here’s the thing: I realized that most of my favorite moments today came from things not going according to plan. The uncooked rice, the accidental nap, the improvised dinner. And maybe that’s the point.
As an INFJ, I tend to want life to make sense. I like things neat in my head, even if my kitchen looks like a mini war zone. But when real life shows up, it doesn’t ask for my permission. Life loves improvisation, and sometimes it plays jazz while I’m still looking for sheet music.
The problem, I think, is this: we live in a culture obsessed with control. We create schedules, goals, five-year plans, productivity hacks, all in the hope that life will behave if we behave. But life doesn’t sign that contract. Research in psychology actually shows that trying too hard to control outcomes increases stress levels and can even backfire. A 2019 study in Personality and Individual Differences found that people who are high on “need for control” report more anxiety when things go off-script. It’s like life becomes one giant rice cooker, and if you forget to press the button, suddenly the whole world feels like a failure.
But here’s a counterintuitive truth: flexibility is linked with resilience. Studies from the American Psychological Association suggest that people who can adapt (who can find humor or alternative paths when things go wrong) bounce back faster from setbacks. In fact, humor itself is considered a coping mechanism that reduces stress hormones. So yes, laughing at your own kitchen disasters is not just good for your mood, it’s practically science-approved therapy.
I think of a line from Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Maybe that’s what my rice cooker was trying to teach me. The crack wasn’t in the machine, but in me; the distracted, slightly clumsy, over-scheduled human who forgot to push a button. And in that crack, a little light snuck in: the laughter with my husband and our guest, the smell of rain, the unexpected ice cream.
Sometimes wisdom hides in the smallest bloopers. The great spiritual teachers always remind us that control is an illusion anyway. The Stoics would say we can’t control external events, only our response to them. So maybe the best way to live is not to avoid mistakes but to leave room for them. To see them not as disruptions, but as invitations.
Here’s my suggestion, to you and to myself: start practicing “planned looseness.” Sure, keep your Google Calendar. Keep your goals and intentions. But leave some white space on the page. Let life doodle there. Because often the most nourishing moments (like impromptu naps or cheap flash sale snacks) happen outside the boxes we draw.
How to do this? A few small ways:
Pause before you panic. Next time something doesn’t go as planned, notice your first reaction. Instead of “Oh no, everything is ruined,” try, “Okay, what else can this moment offer me?”
Reframe the story. Psychologists call it cognitive reappraisal; basically changing the meaning of an event. “Rice not cooked” can become “built-in intermittent fasting.” “Missed meeting” can become “unexpected me-time.”
Laugh out loud. Literally. Even if you feel silly. Humor is a proven stress reliever, and it changes the emotional temperature of a situation almost instantly.
Keep a blooper log. This one’s my personal experiment. Instead of journaling only achievements, I’ve started writing down my small mess-ups that ended well. Like now! Looking back, they read less like failures and more like comedy sketches of real life.
At the end of the day, maybe life is less like a straight highway and more like Jakarta traffic. You can plan the route, check the map, even leave early... and still end up delayed by a motorbike parade or a sudden rainstorm. The point isn’t to eliminate the mess, but to keep moving, honking less, and maybe sharing a snack with whoever’s stuck in the jam with you.
Don’t wait for life to be perfect before you enjoy it. Don’t wait for the rice (or the eggs) to cook before you laugh. Let the rain rock you to sleep, say yes to flash sale batagor, watch a movie even if the timing is “too late.” Because the cracks, the delays, the uncooked rice, the runny yolks... they might just be the light sneaking in.
And if you ever forget to press the button, remember: sometimes the most important moments in life happen while you’re waiting for the rice.
Keep cooking,
Nuniek Tirta
