Cook a real meal just for yourself once. You’ll learn how you treat you when nobody’s watching.

Cooking for other people has a built-in reason to try. With no audience, that reason disappears, and what is left is the standard you actually hold for yourself. Some nights that looks like a real plate at a table. Some nights it is a fork over the pan, and neither one is a verdict on you.

Pick one evening this week and make something that takes more than five minutes, then sit down to eat it. Notice whether you rushed, and what the rushing was about.