Fear not Organic: A Recipe For Survival

Finals are upon us, and I don’t know about you, but I am genuinely questioning how I am going to survive the week. 

Everyone I know is stressed with their seemingly endless list of exams, presentations, papers, and whatever other projects our professors have invented in their minds just to add more to the pile. 

Lucky for you, I have a cure that might just get us all through finals. At the bottom of my flower print recipe box sits a precious gift from my great-grandmother, passed down to my mom – and then to me. 

This gift was meant to be opened at times like these.

Inside my box is a note card that reads in the most elegant cursive, “A Recipe For Survival, Christmas 1999.”

No, this recipe doesn’t call for baking soda or a pinch of salt. 

My mom received her recipe at the perfect time. She was a woman in her early 20s, juggling multiple jobs while caring for a newborn. 

The secret formula must have worked. Not only did she survive raising my brother, but she also successfully raised two more children, all while ke=eping a little bit of light at the end of each day. 

And here I am in college trying to make my mom, my grandma, and my great grandma proud. But there’s no pressure, right?

What worked for mom, might work for me, and maybe it will work for you too. 

Now, most secret recipes are sworn into silence. And trust me, this recipe is just as important as Colonel Sanders’ secret KFC recipe.

But I think everyone could use a little guidance right now.

So, I’m going to pass the recipe on to my friends who are juggling papers, finals, and stressing out about graduation. Drum roll, please.

The Survival Recipe

1. A candle to remind you to shine brightly. 
2. Chocolate kisses to remind you that you are loved. 
3. Matches to light your way when you feel burned out.
4. Taffy to remind you to not bite off more than you can chew. 
5. A pencil to remind you to stay sharp. 
6. Starbursts to give you a burst of energy on those days you have none. 
7. Snickers to remind you to take your time to laugh.
8. A bag to help you keep it all together and give you food for thought. 

Now, one might think, “this sounds like a toothache, not a cure,” but if you read between the lines, wise advice awaits us. 

It’s easy to dismiss something like this as overly sweet, maybe even a little childish. 

But that’s the point. 

The older we get, the more complicated we make survival seem. We dress it up in five-year plans, productivity hacks, and the pressure to have everything figured out by a certain age. 

Somewhere along the way, we forget that survival isn’t always about grand strategies; it’s about small, steady reminders.

Because the truth is, most of us are not failing at life: we’re just tired, stretched too thin, or unsure of what direction to take next. 

And in those moments, survival doesn’t look like thriving. Survival looks like getting through the day with a little bit of light left in us.

That’s what this recipe understands.

The recipe doesn’t ask us to be perfect. It doesn’t expect us to have all the answers. Instead, it offers far more realistic advice: be bright when we can, lean on love when we need it, rest before we break – and, most of all, we must not forget to laugh in the middle of it all.

Maybe that’s why the secret recipe has been sitting at the bottom of a recipe box all these years – not because it was forgotten, but because it was waiting.  

Waiting for a moment when my life felt uncertain enough to need my great-grandma’s help. 

And maybe that’s where most of us are right now, somewhere between who we thought we’d be and who we’re becoming.

So if you’re looking for a sign as we exit the spring semester, this might be it. 

Not a complicated formula or a perfectly mapped-out plan, but a simple reminder that we already have what we need to keep going: a simple gift from Great Grandma. 

Her love passed down to us.

We just need to look at the bottom of our flower print recipe boxes.