One giant, massive hamburger, mind you. It’s called the Big
Jud. The one pound challenge that leaves even the most die-hard burger eaters
crying on the floor. Don’t believe me? Check out the mother of all hamburgers
for yourself.
There was a time, however, when I did NOT split the Big Jud
with someone else. One whole pound of meat to myself. Oh, joy. Lucky for me, my
metabolism could take it.
It’s funny to think back and realize I was on a date for my
first experience at Big Jud’s (that’s also the name of the restaurant.) My date’s
name was Addam, and we were doubling with my roommate Rachelle and Addam’s
roommate Keith.
Well, the boys somehow got it into their heads that it would
be fun to see two small girls with crazy-fast metabolisms take on the Big Jud.
The Big Jud was legendary—everyone knew what they were up against even if they
had never actually seen it before. So, I prepared myself and hardly ate
anything all day long. Little did I know that this is exactly what you DON’T
want to do right before eating a ginormously large meal. My stomach shrunk like
a Capri Sun package being sucked dry. But I had no idea what my stomach was
doing at the time. I thought I was ready to take on this burger and show it who
was boss. When we arrived at the restaurant, I ordered my Big Jud and waited
eagerly for it to come.
But as soon as I saw it, I felt sick. They brought it out on
a white plate, two green toothpicks stuck near the center to hold it together. It
looked like a pie. I had never eaten a whole pie by myself, and I was thinking
that this was probably the equivalent if not worse. They provided big, steak
knives so you could cut the burger into sections since trying to hold the whole
thing and eat it was out of the question. As you can see from the picture, I was
a little worried.
After eating a quarter of it, I knew I was in trouble. My
stomach was already telling me it was near full, and I had three quarters left
to go. I ate another quarter, forcing it down now, and then I couldn’t eat
anymore. My stomach, like a gas pump, had reached its limit and clicked off. I
had failed the Big Jud Challenge. And worse, I had failed by a long shot.
Rachelle, on the other hand, hadn’t starved herself all day
long and was ready. She downed it all. Unfortunately, she didn’t get her
picture on the wall of fame that all Big Jud Challenge champions are
immortalized on because we had to go. Rachelle left victorious, and I left
defeated.
As usual in my blog posts, this experience taught me a
number of valuable lessons:
1.
Before eating a large meal, don’t starve
yourself in the hopes that by not eating you will be able to eat more.
2.
Big Jud’s burgers are not all that tasty, and in
fact, make you feel sick simply by looking at them.
3.
Sometimes in our effort to overcome a big
challenge, we fail.
The third one is probably the best lesson to take from this,
although the first one is pretty important if you’re entering an eating contest
or trying to outdo your brother at Thanksgiving. A fact in life is that we are
going to fail at big challenges sometimes, even ones that we think we are prepared
for or really want to conquer. The funny thing is though, that after the challenge,
we may realize that failing actually made us a better person than succeeding
would have.
Failing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It helps us grow and
become more than we were before if we let it motivate us to succeed next time. Granted,
the next time I went to Big Jud’s I split the burger with my little sister. So I
guess sometimes failures help us see that what we were trying to succeed at may
not have been the wisest decision in the first place. Looking back now, I’m
pretty glad I didn’t succeed. Who knows? If I had eaten that entire burger, I
might have died from cardiac arrest.
But even though we know we are going to fail at some things
in life, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still try to do hard and difficult
things. If we never try, how will we ever know if we can do it or not? Even
though I failed at the Big Jud Challenge, I’m still glad I tried.
So the question is: Can YOU take on the Big Jud Challenges
in life? You just have to remember that taking it on doesn’t necessarily mean
you will come out conqueror, but at least you can say you gave it your best
shot. And who knows? Maybe your failure will prove someday to be your success.