Broken cookie

Lively interactions are a rich source of soul nourishment. A month back, one such interaction with someone having a very high spiritual quotient left a lasting impact. Over a cup of coffee and some delightful cookies, she reminisced about a story which was quite relevant to human state of mind. The story goes like this…

‘A mother of five brothers and sisters declares that after the end of meal the dessert would be her special home made oatmeal cookies. After the meal, she kept the jar on the table and what followed was a noisy scramble amongst the children to grab the jar. In that bitter fight between siblings, the smallest brother aged four could get just one broken cookie. He grabbed it and tearfully threw it to the floor in a rage of despair—My cookie is all broke !

He destroyed the broken cookie into pieces just because it wasn’t as big, as perfect or as tasty as someone’s else cookie’

As her narrative ended, she had to leave midway due to some work commitment.

On my way back home, that story kept reverberating within me as it touched a deep chord. The child in this story was just four. Now, when a child with this mindset would grow into an adult, this thought would get imprinted in his DNA where he will develop a nature to mistake every small disappointment for disaster.

How ironic, we all have been that child once. We have grown through this mindset where winning even the smallest battle in our childhood had been a cause of great celebration in our homes. I recalled how ecstatic my parents used to be when I came back home after winning a stage performance or a declamation contest. We used to celebrate that win either by going to a movie or over a sumptuous dinner in a fancy restaurant.

At the same time, any loss was not taken very rightly and I was reprimanded for a poor show with a caution to pull up my socks for future competitions. Though it used to be a good wake up call but it used to frustrate me and disappoint me as taking loss in the right stride was never taught. The root cause was not my poor performance but someone else’s better show.

If we examine our lives, we humans keep suffering this–Broken Cookie Syndrome– all our lives. When we see someone far ahead in their lives, we start imagining their life like a perfect, tasteful and delicious cookie while branding our life as a distasteful, broken cookie.

Ironically, this thinking pattern is not our fault. We humans are conditioned right from our childhood to excel, to win, to grab every opportunity, to reach and breach every new goal and to have that killer instinct.

When we grow up with this killer mindset and see someone ahead we feel sapped and trapped. We assume ourselves to be inadequate and incapable. We perform as great actors by putting that perfect plastic smile on our face for the world around but in our moment of isolation we suffer miserably. We make our life a complicated mesh of games wherein accumulated resentment leads to endless suffering.

How blissful it would be if we don’t let our life resemble a broken cookie. Even if a piece is missing in our life cookie, we should embrace it, love it and savour it.

Well, we should but do we?

We may nod ‘yes’ but in reality we keep sticking to disappointment like a honey bee getting stuck in honey. Ironically, the root cause of our suffering is not what we lack, but what others have.

As the famous quote says…Don’t compare yourself. We’re all a hot mess. Some people just hide it better.