Perfectly Imperfect: A Lesson from the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders

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There was once a restaurant in Japan where the elderly waiters and waitresses suffered from varying degrees of memory loss. It was called a “restaurant of mistaken orders”, where most of the time the orders went wrong.

Of course the patrons did not mind. In fact, many considered it a soul-enriching experience. It was one way they could show kindness and a sense of inclusiveness toward the people serving them.

Sometimes the most meaningful experiences come not from perfection, but from understanding and kindness

The people taking orders may be making mistakes; they may be imperfect in some way. But they are certainly not inadequate.

You may have heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Each snowflake takes a form that is perfectly suited for its journey. While the universal force of gravity gives them a shared destination, the vastness of the air allows each snowflake the freedom to take its own path.

They are on the same journey, yet each travels differently.

Along this gravity-driven descent, some snowflakes collide and damage each other. Some collide and join together. Some are influenced by the wind. There are countless transitions and changes along the snowflake’s journey.

Yet no matter what the transition, the snowflake always finds itself perfectly shaped for the path it takes.

This is a wonderful parallel to the people serving at the restaurant, and perhaps to our own lives as well.

As part of this grand orchestration, we too are driven by universal forces toward the same destination. Each of us travels a different path. Along the way we bump into one another, we cross paths, we influence and alter each other.

Yet through all these encounters, we remain, each of us, perfectly imperfect.

The people working at that restaurant did not need sympathy. What they needed was understanding: the recognition that we are all moving in the same direction, and that each of us has taken the perfect form for our own journey.

Indeed our relationships would be so much stronger if we could recognise that, like snowflakes drifting through the same sky, we are all perfectly imperfect for the journeys we take.

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