I loved writing letters and leave little notes to my friends and family and I would decorate them with beautiful, shining stickers.
At the time, there weren’t any nice stickers in Israel, so my parents would bring me some each time they travelled abroad.
After every little note I wrote, I would spend a long time thinking which sticker I should use to decorate it. I wanted, of course, to find a nice sticker. But I also didn’t want to spend the nicest, since I wanted to save them for “later”, for an important note (such as a birthday card) or an important person (such as my best friend or a boyfriend…).
Enjoying life by arimou0
But more than that, one day I’ve realized that since I always used the “least beautiful“, I’ll never get to use the “most beautiful”. Even when all there’ll be left will be those which originally I saw as the most beautiful, actually, they’ll be the least beautiful of the remaining ones.
I also knew there’ll be time in which I’ll have to stop using stickers, since I’ll be considered “too old” for that, so I might not even get the chance to use the nicest at all.
Then there was my brother, who would come back from school, rush to the fridge, take out his favourite dairy puddings and vacuum them in, in 1 gulp. In the background, my mother would be exclaiming “don’t fill up your stomach before lunch, or you won’t have room for real food“. But it was always too late.
I, of course, was petrified of this defiance of house (and universe) rules. I always ate dessert AFTER finishing everything off the plate (doesn’t matter how full I was, there was always room for dessert).
It’s not always the case now. Maybe I AM getting older, but more and more I find myself giving up on dessert, since I’m too full after dinner. But sometimes dessert IS the best part of the meal. So how come I keep it for last, when I can barely enjoy it, since I even find it hard to breath after a full meal?
Who says cake isn’t “real food”?
Who says vacations, laughter, fun, aren’t a “grown up behaviour”?
How often do we postpone the best parts of life, saving it for “better days” or “rainy days” – such as the people who save ALL their money, or their vacation days – and we never get to enjoy it, while it’s still here, while we still can?
How many of us deny ourselves pleasures until we’ve “earned” them, in hard labour or in eating our vegetables (even harder labour)?
And yes, I know “there’s no such thing as a free lunch“, but why do we have to “earn” our right to enjoy our life?
Sometimes it’s exactly BEFORE facing a hard work, that it’s important to pumper yourself with a nice treat, just as we fill up the car with gas BEFORE we take a long drive. Or else, how will the car go?
A note : most cakes represent a well-balanced meal: flour gives us the carbohydrates we all need, sugar supply the glucose our brain uses in order to function, eggs are a great source of amino-acids/proteins and some vitamins which are essential for our body and butter/cream/cheese, which are used in most (good) cakes contain calcium and proteins. and i remember the calories, but by “cake” I mean a slice, not the whole cake…
So – go enjoy a piece of cake, read that great book you’ve been postponing for too long or just sit in a nice terrace and have a drink with a good friend.
Chin-chin!
