About Having Your Cake

A friend of mine was feeling extremely down last night. Without going into too many details, it basically boiled down to a situation that wasn't going well, 1 that she couldn't make herself get out of. What bothered me was the way she was beating herself up over it...

I guess we've all been there... You know that you'll probably be better off if you start running as hard and as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Instead? You let your heart rule your head, and remain in that swampy, boggy patch of quicksand till it swallows you whole. You're sinking so fast you can barely think and yet, you don't seem to have the will power to get out before it engulfs you totally.

My take on these sort of scenarios? We're human after all... Emotions play a huge part in the decisions we make and we can't be expected to be rational and level-headed about everything we do in life. (Where would be the fun in that?! Heh!)

The key to keeping your sanity, however, is to accept the fact that you might very well suffocate in the long run, and to face up to all possible consequences right up front. No point in hating yourself for not doing the "right" thing, i.e. For taking what you know is the "logical", "textbook-correct" way out. At the end of the day, forcing yourself to turn a blind eye to the way you feel might end up making you even more miserable than you would be if you just went with the flow.

Here's my little analogy...

Think of yourself as someone who has a natural, innate deficiency when it comes to baking. Every damn cookie, scone, cake and meringue you've tried to make in the past tasted so bad, your pet goat wouldn't go near it with a 10-foot pole. (Hah! Bet you guys know at least 1 person who like that!) Anyway... Someone gives you a wonderful, melt-in-your-mouth, omigawd-I'm-having-an-epiphany recipe for chocolate brownies. Despite your track record, you decide to give baking another shot.

There's a slim chance that maybe, just maybe, your brownies will turn out so perfect, you'll floor all those idiots around you who've laughed themselves into a coma at your previous attempts to be Martha Stewart. More likely than not, the brownies are gonna come out as hard as rock, more suited for use as an impromptu football than as a dessert devised to tickle the palate.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how the damn cake turns out. What matters is that you baked it, knowing full well that it could turn out to be the earth's next great toxic waste, because you knew that you could still live with yourself after. Because you tried. Because you dared to try.

God knows if that made any sense to the rest of you. Maybe I'm trying to justify my own choices in life. Maybe whatever I've written in the last half an hour's just nonsensical blathering with no logic behind it whatsoever. All I know is, I'll never be able to have my cake and eat it too if I don't at least try to bake it 1st.

Happy Friday everyone... :)