LIFE & TIMES: Life as a Cake

There are people struggling out there, I guess there always has been, but now, post-Covid, and with the current cost-of-living crisis, it’s particularly prevalent.

I know, I’ve been right there, right at rock bottom, and it’s only when you reach that point in desperation that you can decide to fight your way out of it. But you do have to get there.

There is no point pretending things are ok when they are not. That’s papering over the cracks. No, you need to be proper back against the wall desperate for your body and your mind to react in a positive manner.

So here’s the cake metaphor to help explain.

Imagine your life as a cake you’ve made. 

You’ve selected the ingredients over the years, you’ve mixed it all together as you’ve been taught to, and you’ve baked it.

Now you taste it, it’s ok, just ok. Something in not right but you can’t put your finger on it. 

Too much sugar, not enough. The batter might have lumps in it but you go with the flow, pretending it’s the best cake you’ve ever made. You ignore all that’s wrong with your cake and concentrate what’s right. But of course, what’s wrong and not corrected, it is still making the difference to your cake, isn’t it?

Now others, once they’ve tasted it, know it’s wrong, they, tasting it from a distance and thus are not emotionally connected, can pinpoint the exact reason why your cake tastes like shit.

You ignore, ‘my cake is fine, it just needs a nice topping.’

In cake parlance, it’s cream with a cherry on top, in life speech, it could be a new girlfriend or boyfriend.

Now the cake looks nice, but underneath all that fluff, it still tastes awful. You change the topping again, swapping the cherry for a strawberry. You ignore the underlying taste.

But still, its fundamentally flawed, even though it looks different.

So what do you do with your cake? Throw it away and start again? Yes, but you don’t. You keep thinking your cake is good enough. Toppings come, toppings go. 

And here’s the thing, if you keep on serving the same cake to people, they’ll disappear, they’ll loose interest, they might even start to resent you.

Until you realise, once the choice of toppings has been depleted, that scrapping it is the only course of action to take.

You’ve hit rock bottom with nowhere left to go. Time is ticking away.

Now at this point you finally decide to throw your cake away and start all over again, with the very best ingredients, the best care and most importantly with the realisation that it was you and your denial that has stopped the cake from tasting nice.

Once you figure that, you can, and will make the best cake you’ve ever made. Not only that, you’ll love that you did, you’ll be proud of it and everyone will come flocking back to share it with you.

But, the warning, you have to realise your cake is awful before you can build another bigger, better and more rewarding one.

And that is one massive, painful hurdle to leap over.

Jon