Shish Kabobs and the Power of Why

A certain young man set off into the world, determined to become a skilled metal shish kabob skewer maker. 

(This was the dream job of many young lads in the land.)

To accomplish his dream, the young man sought out the best shish kabob skewer maker in all the land to learn from him. He searched everywhere until he eventually found himself in a small metalwork shop where he met a man, humble and wise, who agreed to train him in the art of metal shish kabob skewer-making.

After speaking with him for a time, he realized that he was speaking with Bob, THE Bob, the man for whom the shish kabob was named after. Bob even told the young man the decades-old story of how, after placing chunks of meat onto a metal stick and grilling it over an open fire, one of Bob's friends exclaimed, "Shishka, Bob, that is one great stick!"

Anyway, this young man was trained in how to make metal sticks that cook meat perfectly over open flame. He was taught how to bring the ingredients to a boil, add a cup of iron, a half-cup of coking coal to produce the carbon, and a pinch of limestone, then finish it off with a 1/4 cup of steel shavings.

"It's just like making soup!" Bob told the young man. "Oh, except, you should never actually add a 1/4 cup of sharp metal shavings to your soup. Please remember that, and do not tell your mother I taught you to add 1/4 cup of sharp metal shavings to your soup at home. She would be very angry with me if you were to do that."

And so the young man started making skewers. On his third day, when the moment arrived to add the pinch of limestone to his batch, he realized he didn't quite have enough left. He decided to put in what he had. When the skewers were finished, he compared them with Bob's skewers and couldn't notice any noticeable difference. They looked exactly the same! 

With this new insight, the young man decided that he wouldn't add limestone to any of the rest of his batches for the rest of the week. This would save Bob money, he thought, by not adding what seemed to be an unnecessary ingredient. 

On Friday, Bob congratulated the young man for his first week of training and allowed him to keep one of his skewers in celebration. The young man immediately went out and bought a steak, chopped it into small chunks, and poked the chunks with his skewer. Then he proudly placed the skewer over an open fire and dreamed of the possibilities that would accompany his newly-developed skill. Halfway through the cooking, suddenly there was a loud metal crack and the skewer fell into the fire in pieces.

He was devastated. In that moment he realized the importance of the limestone, which he hadn't added to his metal. The limestone draws out the impurities in the metal. As a result of not adding it, the metal was weak and could not do what it was supposed to, which is to withstand intense heat while cooking meat over an open fire.

Without knowing WHY that part of the process was important, the intent behind his creation was lost... and his efforts were shattered like a dozen pieces of a poorly-crafted shish kabob skewer.

With tough love,