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Having love and success in life is a delicate balance.

Even when finding it excites us, we have to remember to slow down as nothing ever comes from simply swooping in—even when we think we’re doing it with style. Move too fast, and we end up losing it. Move too slow, and like the death of a long black night, it will slip away leaving us to wonder if it was ever meant to be.

If all the world was a birthday cake—each slice an opportunity or experience—I would tell anyone to enjoy it fully, one slice at a time, but having too much may have detrimental effects in more ways than one. As the famous saying goes: a moment on the lips, forever on the hips—or something along those lines, if you catch my drift.

Can life be compared to a cake?

To create a masterpiece of any kind takes patience and time as you pour your love into your new creative project. You’ll need the correct high-quality ingredients, the perfect oven temperature, and the right tools to get that beautiful soft, slightly bouncy Victoria sponge, if that’s what you are looking to shape, mold, and create. And if it all falls to pieces, we can always call it an Eton Mess and make the best​​ out of a bad situation.

Here’s a true story:

This jumbled-up dessert, the Eton mess that is, started with a dog and a Pavlova. According to The Runnymede, “The legend has it that a cricket match was taking place at Eton College in the 1920s. A strawberry Pavlova was waiting in a picnic basket as an after-match treat for the boys when an overexcited Labrador sat on the basket and squashed it. The boys didn’t mind the fact that their dessert had been ruined and they ate it anyway!”

The moral of the story is if the dog didn’t sit on the cake, there wouldn’t be a dessert called Eton Mess today. The ultimate creamy and sweet jumbled-up cake/dessert.

I love how we can compare life and all its experiences to food. Hell, we even got some cheesy pick-up lines we can use:

>> We should get coffee sometime because I like you a latte.

>> You must be a banana because I find you very a-peeling.

>> I think we’d make a cute pear.

Anyone feeling hungry yet?

I know it’s hard when something is going well; so well, in fact, that the excitement of what’s transpiring is all you can think about and dream about, but the key to opening the door is to not rush it—especially when it’s quality rather than quantity you’re seeking.

Like a flower, it requires watering, love, and nourishment. Whatever the situation. You water it a little, then a little more, and before you know it, the flower will start to blossom resulting in you appreciating the time and effort spent to get to see the beauty unfold before your eyes, yielding the desired results.

Swooping in will result in foundations being built on quicksand and nothing can grow when you don’t water it or if we keep disturbing the seeds and soil to see how much it has grown. As the saying goes: easy come, easy go—especially when it’s obtained with the least amount of effort.

Life throws us curve balls all the time, knocking us down and making us feel as if we are unworthy and unloved. We may try, and try harder, and we may keep getting the same dire results. But nothing will change when we keep taking the same approach, so I’ve learned to do things differently—taking a step back and looking at the situation at hand with eyes of wonder instead of lust or a prize to be won.

I know it sounds like entry-level common sense, but putting it into practice when we are creatures of habit is not as easy as you may think.

So, what did I do differently? I adopted the mantra: “You’re overthinking it again.”

We always overthink and apply meaning where there is none. Life unfolds for us when we enjoy the moment, the company, the conversation, without any expectations of what it should look like.

Play it cool, take your time, and as my Dad used to say, “Tomorrow is another day.”