The millennial inside me wanted to cry because there was no way this less-than-perfect batch of cookies were to go on my Snapchat story.

 

My ambitious self started small by trying to bake the quintessential gooey on-the-inside and crunchy on-the-outside type of chocolate chip cookie. It turned out to be a bigger job than I had expected: I had to make sure I had enough of the ingredients, organize the counter by placing the utensils that are needed and make sure I read the recipe four times over.

 

All that work and the cookies turned out flat as discs.

 

Frankly, I’m tired of being lumped into a generation most people see as ‘lazy’. Apparently, we don't know how to survive. We don’t know how to do laundry, how to cook and apparently we can’t make cookies. Maybe I do get bits of detergent stuck to my jumpers after a wash, and perhaps I forgot to peel that carrot one time before grating it.

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But that doesn’t mean we’re utterly hopeless.

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As a millennial, it can often be hard to be taken seriously. We’re the ‘selfish’ generation that is constantly glued to screens, and that dislikes human interaction. Where we prefer to send messages instead of calling, where we prefer to order food through an app than picking it up ourselves. But when the UberEats delivery is a minute over than it’s estimated time of arrival, we get cranky.

 

We often get told we don’t know how to plan our time well and we don’t think twice about the word ‘punctuality’. We never stay in one job long enough to understand perseverance. It’s hard to be judged on and be accused of many things because you’re young.

 

The worst possible accusation is that millennials are instant gratification addicts. We also don’t help ourselves in that sense because we enjoy seeing notifications roll in for likes on your latest Instagram post and we expect our takeaway coffees made in under a minute (trust me, it doesn’t help staring at the barista either). The adage, ‘patience is key’, often gets lost in the hustle of modern living and the list of clichéd mottos of a millennial.

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In a way, it is not entirely our fault. Society demands things be done a little faster. We learn this from early days of schooling all the way to working life. The examples are plenty: from stigmas around failing a school year to connotations around being a virgin at a later stage in life. Where one should be at a specific point in life is all too relative, since we all run on different clocks.

 

Too many times I have looked through the dimly lit oven, adjusting my head around the field of view to check whether my peanut butter brownie has finished baking. Too many times, I have flipped the burger a little too early, giving in to the temptation of wanting things to be done quicker. Too many times where I just stared at my fried egg hoping it will just cook slightly. Damn. Faster.

 

But there is a cure to slow down

this pace of life, believe it or not.

That cure is through cooking.  

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A couple of weeks passed before I

gave the cookie thing another

shot – it was not what I had

imagined, but it was much

improved than before. It turned

out I hadn’t read the recipe all the

way through before starting, to

know there is a difference between

using brown and caster sugar in a

cookie dough. And that it helped

if you didn’t keep opening the oven

because you were in a hurry.

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It’s all because I rushed everything.

 

But if there was anything gained

from that devastating turn of

events, it was my ability to persevere. The fail of the sweet treat made me think of another overused quote: good things come to those who wait. A motto that makes millennials collectively roll their eyes but also one that resonates deeply in cooking.

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Instant gratification is the last thing millennials will get out of creating food. It can be scary to know it won't be done in the speed you want it to, but it can also be refreshing if you let it.

 

The next time an internship ends up being a dud, where that menial task is close to breaking me, I’ll remember the time when my cookies came out the way I wanted to, and I’ll stick around longer for the promise of something better.