Be a Potato: Why Perfect Is Overrated

Last Monday I found myself standing in our caravan's tiny kitchen, filming myself making a potato bake. Not because I'd planned it. Because I'd upset my husband by not making it on Sunday, when he'd apparently asked me to, so I hauled myself to the shops to buy the ingredients, because believe it or not, our caravan kitchen was completely potato-less at the time.

So there I was, slightly guilty, definitely not organised, filming myself making a potato bake and telling the internet to be a potato.

I wasn't trying to be deep about it. I was standing in my kitchen with a knife and a tray, half laughing at myself, thinking about how tired I was of everything needing to look a certain way before I'd let myself feel proud of it.

So I said it. Be a potato. And then I explained why.

My potato bake isn't a fancy one. Sliced potatoes, diced onion, bacon, a packet of French onion soup mix, 600ml of cream, all tossed together and covered in cheese. Most people layer it. Neat rows of potato, slightly overlapping, exactly the way it looks in every recipe photo you've ever seen.

I don't. I tip everything in and mix it around with my hands until it's an absolute mess in the dish. And it comes out of the oven more evenly cooked than the tidy version ever did for me.

Higgledy piggledy potato bake beats beautifully arranged potato bake. Every time, in my kitchen anyway. Honestly, that might be the whole point.

I even went looking for something to back myself up on this. Every single thing I found said to layer it neatly. Not a single peer-reviewed paper on Aussie potato bake to be found, obviously, but even the recipe blogs were against me. So maybe it really is just me. Or maybe all that advice is for people who need their potato bake to look good for the photo, not necessarily to actually taste right. I don't know. What I do know is that in my kitchen, the messy version works, and the neat version has let me down more than once with a raw slice hiding in the middle.

But I do know this. I'm going to keep doing it my way anyway.

I think we do the same thing to ourselves that I used to do to potato bake.

We layer everything. Our week, our routines, the version of ourselves we let people see, beautifully, neatly, in a way that looks good from above. The tidy program documentation. The "I'm fine, just busy" answer when someone actually asks how you're going. The classroom that looks calm and controlled by nine o'clock even though you were up half the night with a sick kid, or grieving, or just plain exhausted. We arrange the visible layer so carefully that from above, nothing looks out of place.

And somewhere underneath all that careful arranging, the parts of us that actually needed air and heat and attention are quietly steaming instead of cooking properly. Not falling apart, nothing dramatic enough to notice from above. Just slowly not cooking through. A bit more tired each week. A bit shorter with the people we love. A bit further from ourselves, while everything on top still looks fine.

I don't always get this right. There are entire weeks I've spent trying to make my life look like the neat, overlapping version instead of just letting it be a bit messy and genuinely functional. Saying "good, busy!" on autopilot because it was easier than admitting I wasn't, actually.

But one of the biggest things my injury ever taught me is that perfect is quite honestly overrated. That was a bloody big lesson for me to learn, the kind you don't choose but end up needing anyway. When you can't hold everything together the way you used to, when your brain won't let you fake it the way it once could, you stop getting a choice about whether to be the neat, layered version. You just have to be whatever version is actually available that day. And it turns out that version was fine. More than fine, most days.

Turns out the messy version, the one where I actually said I was struggling, or actually took the walk, or actually let the caravan be a caravan instead of pretending it was the house I used to have, was usually working better the whole time. I just wasn't giving it any credit, because it didn't look like the photo.

And here's the thing I've noticed since. The messy version is the one people actually show up for. A late blog post. A caravan life photo that isn't styled. A video of me making a very ordinary potato bake. That's the stuff you actually respond to. Not the neat, curated version. The messy one.

I don't know if that's because you're all secretly waiting to watch me fall flat on my face. I don't actually think it is. I think it's because when I let the walls of perfection down, it gives you permission to let yours down too. To be the landscape of normal instead of the highlight reel. To be higgledy piggledy, on purpose, without apologising for it.

Wellbeing doesn't need to be layered perfectly to work. Sometimes higgledy piggledy is what actually cooks evenly.

Reflection Question

Where in your life are you layering something beautifully because you think that's what's expected, when the higgledy piggledy version might actually work just as well, or better?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

💙 Rachel Smith

The Educators WellWellbeing First • Empower Through Learning • Lead With Purpose • Lift Each Other Up

P.S. — The Higgledy Piggledy Potato Bake Recipe

Because you asked.

• About 1kg potatoes, peeled and sliced

• 6 rashers of bacon, short cut or streaky, whatever's in the fridge

• 1 onion, diced

• A teaspoon of garlic from a jar if you want

• 1 packet French onion soup mix

• 600ml cream

• Grated cheese

Toss the potatoes, bacon, onion, garlic and soup mix together in a baking dish. No layering. Pour the cream over and mix it through with your hands until everything's coated and it looks like an absolute mess. Top with cheese.

As for time and temperature, my honest method is: start cooking around 4pm and hope it's done by the time we're eating at 6. If you want an actual number to work from, 180°C fan-forced for around 1.5 to 2 hours is a safe bet — just check the potatoes are soft with a knife and the top is golden before you pull it out.

Higgledy piggledy. Every time.