Last week we have learned from buffet from producer side. Now, I’m going to share my thought on the consumer sight. I’m sure that you have gone to a buffet sometime. How was your experience? Do you make plan on what to take or not to take? How do you usually do to take a buffet? It sounds like too complicated for a simple meal. It is just come, dine and stop when you’ve became full, right? I believe it’s that simple, but when I look at how some people take their food, it’s very interesting.

I’m sure this list is still not complete, but these are the top 4 lesson that we can learn from the guess in a buffet:

1. Most people will become greedy when they have buffet.
I know some people who are very calculative. Since it is a buffet, they planned on how to take more food. They will try to starve themselves in hope that they can eat more in the buffet. But the fact is they can’t take much more than the usual, and if they do take more, the feeling is not good. They feel too bloated and hard to even walk out.

Just like in life, there are a lot of things that offered to us. Let it be music, task at job, position, food, knowledge, etc. Everything seems important and interesting for us to take. It is better to take slowly and to digest it first. And it doesn’t matter if at the end you learn everything or just some, as long as you learn something, that’s good. Of course, after a whole, you’ll be better at it so that you can digest more things. If you try to take everything in one go, you won’t be able to enjoy it. When I was a high school student, I’ve tried to learn as much as I can from a self help book. After trying to learn, and absorb the content I have queasy feeling. I believe that if you try to have too much of something, you’ll feel sick of it. Take as much as you can, not too much and not too little, by that you’ll be able to grow better as a person.

2. People perceive how much is the ROI of the buffet price
Have you tried this method? To mentally calculate how much the cost per item that you want to take and how much you can take? I might sound like an old person, when I was young, I can eat a lot. So I take whatever things that look expensive. Prawns, oyster, steak, etc. And I’ll skip the cheap stuff such as pasta, potato, rice. If I think I haven’t fulfilled the amount, I’ll take more until I think the food worth the same or more than what I have paid. At the end, I felt bloated and I couldn’t enjoy the meal.

There are some things that you can’t measure with price. Although you’d like to think that you haven’t had enough, take a short break of it. And by then, you’ll able to get more. An example that I can think of is a conference. I believe that’s why they put breaks in between of sessions. So that you can get more from the conference by having time to absorb the content.

3. They take the things that they like most of the time
Usually I a buffet, people take what they like only. I can say that most people love meat, so they will take more meat and less veggies. Beside eating veggies will be your loss right? I’ve seen my brother took a lot of seafood and meat more in a buffet and not taking any veggies. I also followed his steps, and that’s why I have high cholesterol.

People need varieties. No matter with what they eat physically or mentally. We need healthy food and less junk food. I know it is tasty and will always be tasty, but at the end it ruined your body. There will be always things that are good and bad for our body. Be selective in what you take. You only live once (YOLO), make it count. Of course you can think to have fun all the way, but remember this, at the end you’ll full of regret. There’s no hard line on how much you can or can’t do, find it according to your base. What is your foundation in life?

4. Coordinated vs uncoordinated way of picking the food
I saw some different way of two families take the food. One family walk to the buffet line and take whatever they want while somebody was waiting at the table. They take anything that they like, and at the end, everyone have the similar food on every plate. Another family walk to the buffet line, they organize who take which one and wait on the food when it’s being refilled. at the end they have extra smaller plates for everyone and they share the food.

As you can see, the one that just go and take whatever they like ended up having the same thing. My guess was they didn’t communicate with each other or they just follow what the other person doing and thinking about themselves only. In the same way in a group task, it is better to coordinate and distribute the task so that the task will be completed faster and more efficient. It seems that it is a simple thing, but I’m also guilty of this. Sometime, I try to do everything because I don’t trust other person. This has made there are some tasks that are left behind.

There are more important things in life rather than to satisfy our wants. We might perceive it as something that we need, but it’s not. This are some lessons that intrigue my mind during waiting time on a buffet. It is simple things that I forget sometime. I hope that we can learn and be better in our life by doing more intentional things in what we are doing.

Can you share an experience that you learn from simple things in life that make you live better?

“Live your everyday extraordinary!” ― Charles F. Glassman