How an ADHD Couple Saved Rosh Hashanah Dinner: 4 Lessons to Embrace Your ADHD Superpowers
Discover how Marvin and Simcha used their ADHD strengths to overcome chaos, save the day, and avoid a holiday disaster—and how you can too!
Ever have your inlaws over for dinner and realize you had forgotten to buy an important element of the meal? Meet Marvin and Simcha. The couple whose love is as strong as their ADHD. Marvin’s got enough energy to power a small country, and Simcha? Well, she’s so deep in thought she could probably meditate through a thunderstorm. Together, they’re a beautiful, chaotic mess—but tonight, they've got one major problem: they forgot the gefilte fish (a poached, seasoned fish patty, often served cold at Jewish holidays)for their Rosh Hashanah dinner, and Marvin’s mother cannot find out.
Now, forgetting the gefilte fish isn’t just a slip-up; it’s a potential family catastrophe. If Marvin’s mom knew, she wouldn’t just bring it up tonight—she’d be talking about it at every holiday for the next decade. “Remember the year someone forgot the gefilte fish?” she’d say, eyes on Simcha. Not a chance. They’ve got to fix this. Fast.
The Power of ADHD: How Marvin and Simcha Saved the Day
Step 1: Accept the Chaos
Simcha panics first. “The gefilte fish!” she yells as if it’s just escaped from the fridge and is running down the street. Marvin freezes mid-pace. They’ve got an hour before dinner, and most stores are sold out.
Here’s the thing about ADHD: it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the details you forgot or missed. But, instead of spiraling, they do what every ADHD brain does best: they embrace the chaos and focus on the now.
Lesson 1: When things go off the rails, don’t waste time panicking—focus on solving the immediate problem. Accept that mistakes happen and work from where you are, not where you wish you were.
Step 2: Leverage Your Strengths
Marvin’s got the energy of a caffeinated squirrel, so he springs into action. “I’ll hit the stores!” he shouts, already halfway out the door. Meanwhile, Simcha, the more reflective one (when she’s not lost in thought), picks up the phone and starts calling delis.
Marvin zips from store to store, knocking over a display of honey cakes at one place, accidentally getting stuck in the parking lot at another. But that’s his ADHD superpower—he moves. Even if it’s in a hundred directions at once, he’s doing something, and that’s better than doing nothing. Simcha, on the other hand, has the patience and focus (when she locks in) to sit down and think strategically: she’ll check every store, every backup plan.
Lesson 2: Divide and conquer by playing to your ADHD strengths. Some of us are great at quick, impulsive action (hello, hyperactivity), while others excel at diving deep into a single task (inattentive types, this one’s for you). Work together, and you’ll cover more ground.
Step 3: Use Resources Creatively
Now, not everything works smoothly. Marvin’s running around like a man on fire, and Simcha? She gets distracted on a phone call, talking about challah covers instead of fish. But then—success! Marvin finds one last jar of gefilte fish in the back of a freezer at a dusty old grocery store. Simcha also finds a backup option at a deli—frozen fish patties, just in case.
They’re resourceful, they improvise, and they keep going despite a million distractions pulling them off track. When Marvin finds that lone jar of fish, it’s like he’s won the lottery. They don’t stop at the first obstacle—they keep pushing, and they use every option available.
Lesson 3: When ADHD throws you a curveball, be resourceful and persistent. You might not do things the conventional way, but you’ll get there if you keep going. ADHD brains are masters at thinking outside the box when they need to.
Step 4: Celebrate the Small Wins
They race back home, gefilte fish in hand, and get it on the table just in time. Marvin’s mom takes a bite, nods, and says, “This is just like Bubbe used to make.” Marvin and Simcha share a look. No one knows the chaos that went into making that moment happen.
Sure, it wasn’t perfect. There were distractions, wrong turns, and a close call with no gefilte fish at all. But at the end of the day, they got it done.
Lesson 4: Celebrate your wins—even the small ones. When you’ve got ADHD, the path to success might be windy and full of distractions, but if you reach your goal, that’s a win. Don’t worry about how you got there—focus on the fact that you made it.
The Takeaway for All of Us
Marvin and Simcha’s adventure might seem like a comedy of errors, but it’s a story full of lessons for anyone with ADHD:
Accept the chaos. Don’t get stuck in “what ifs” when things go wrong. Start where you are and focus on the solution.
Play to your strengths. Hyperactive or inattentive, we all bring something unique to the table. Use your natural tendencies to your advantage.
Be resourceful and persistent. You might not take the traditional route, but you’ll find a way if you stay flexible and keep trying.
Celebrate the small victories. Even when the journey is messy, getting to the finish line is what matters.
Marvin and Simcha may have forgotten the gefilte fish, but they didn’t forget how to be a team. So next time life throws you a curveball, embrace your ADHD superpowers—because sometimes, it’s the only way to save the day. Or at least, the gefilte fish.
Let us know a time you saved the day at the last minute and mollified your mother-in-law or negated noisy neighbors!