Baking Cakes For Christmas Taught Me A Life Lesson
You Deserve The Love You Keep Trying To Give Everyone Else
You deserve the love you keep trying to give everyone else. - @theopeninvite
Christmas time is a busy baking time for me.
I need to bake cakes for the family, friends, and my brother's friends, colleagues and helpers.
And since it's Christmas, I need to bake red-green-yellow tutti-fruti cakes.
This Christmas, I was physically and mentally tired. But baking had to be done, so I got to work.
While baking for others, I realised I don't enjoy tutti-fruti cakes myself. I prefer chocolate cakes.
But the thought of baking another batch of a cake made me exhausted.
"I don't have the stamina to bake another cake," I told myself, "I'll just compromise with the tutti-fruti."
That is when a voice inside me spoke.
"Why should others get to eat the cake they want on Christmas and not you? Shouldn't you also enjoy your Christmas?"
That stopped me in my tracks.
"Yeah!" I said, "I should bake a chocolate cake for myself. Why should I spread joy to others and skip out on myself?"
You see, the Capricorn-Empath-INFJ in me wants to keep everyone happy and satisfied. What I don't see most of the time is that I am trying to keep them happy at my cost.
Plus, their happiness is not in my hands.
I can do all the right things, things that I know will make them happy, and still, they may not be so.
I have seen this play when I do something for others, and they don't react. Not even a negative one. All I get is indifference. Like it didn't matter if I did the deed or not. Which is worse than a negative reaction.
That, to be honest, made me question my worth.
Thankfully, over the years, I have grown wiser.
I know my self-worth or happiness doesn't and shouldn't depend on others.
That's my job to take care of.
So I will bake cakes and make others happy.
But I will also bake my chocolate cake and make myself happy.
