All day, all you can eat, breakfast buffet

This morning started without breakfast. I was meant to ‘break the fast’ with a friend, but they cancelled. I felt somewhat cross with myself for not having had a ‘pre-breakfast’  first. I am a woman who could definitely eat two breakfasts, maybe even three. Okay, okay, just sit me down next to an all day, all you can eat, breakfast buffet and I will keep going. So my new plan was to get home and have.. (imaginary drumroll)

‘the most incredible breakfast ever conceived in the complete history of all breakfasts.’

Just because I utterly could. I had a bowl of cornflakes followed by some olive oil toasted toast with two eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. It was a very good breakfast, not sure whether it would live up to ‘best breakfast ever’ but it was pretty decent. I then wondered whether or not I would have bothered with a somewhat fancier breakfast than normal if I had not been let down.

Sometimes I do cook myself some truly amazing meals. I make ravioli from scratch and other such malarkey. I can be an exceptional cook. But a lot of the time I am not exceptional, I am somewhat dull and predictable in my food assemblage. It surprised me that my un-met expectation of a good breakfast spurred me enough to make my own (pressing and drying all those cornflakes from scratch was a task of great monument!). And then I thought about how being let down sometimes seems to provide most excellent motivation.

I go through phases of ‘hell hath no fury’ productivity to outright apathy. Motivation is hard for me to keep constant. But motivation inspired by feeling let down? It feels kind of strange. If I do something kind for myself, the person that benefits is me! It shouldn’t have to go through the conduit of frustration. And then I got to the actual question. Why am I not nurturing myself in this way, to begin with?

It can be a time thing or an effort thing. When friends come over, I do nice things for them, but if I am home just by myself, it can be too easy to forget, too easy to just make do. Over the past few years, my self-nurturing has increased massively, but it can be incredibly useful to be reminded. So I feel gratitude for the cancelled breakfast, it was an amazing reminder to look after me!

Map Point. Where am I actively choosing to delay my happiness?