Charger Blogger Finds Balance and Learns From Failure

Hey, hi, and hello, there, everyone. How are we doing? Like actually. This month I have baked more than I probably ever have before, seen most of my friends, and actually touched some grass with my toes. Considering finals are right around the corner, it is a little weird that I’m doing all of this, but maybe it’s my body’s way of protesting against the stress it’s endured for the past six months.

There’s no doubt that college is hard. Nobody — and I mean nobody — after high school decides that they’re going to go to college for fun or because they’re bored. Of course, there will be exceptions, but, hey, man, I definitely wasn’t one.

This year has not only been a showcase of what I have and could endure, but it has shown me how big life really is. I remember that I’d be so bent on controlling every aspect of my life: the gym, my work schedule, when homework got done, when homework didn’t get done, etc., that it sucked the life out of me. Life isn’t meant to be trapped because that’s not how life works – it moves.

So... baking. I’ve been baking a lot, talking to people who I wish I would talk to more, enjoying the things I’ve started to forget about. Embracing my creative spirit has been one of the best medicines I could give to myself, and I think that maybe it’s one of the things I was missing. Expression is so innate to the human race, as we express ourselves in our art, our actions, our speech and tone, and the way we move. We are all full of this moving energy, and stress disrupts that. Movement allows me to breathe, and because I am breathing, I am moving. It’s that simple, weirdly enough.

Going back to baking, it’s one of the few things that brings me genuine joy and pleasure. Granted, there are a few moments where everything goes wrong, i.e.:

Author, watching a loaf split in half after experimenting with an egg substitute: “Well... that didn’t work.”

[Cue tart explosion in the oven] “Oh, uh, not good.”

Author: “Thank god you [babka loaf] actually worked.”
Babka loaf, a god: “Lol nope” (Proceeds to deflate into a molten chocolatey mess)
Author: (sobbing)

(Honestly, I’ve tried that babka not once, but THREE times and it STILL refuses to work! I swear, it’s something to do with the rising and proof times!)

Anyhow, baking has taught me a great deal of important things, but recently the lesson has been using failure to learn. Every single time I’d fail a product (cookie, loaf, etc.) I’d research how to fix the problem, and no matter how annoying it was to re-start, I’d do it again. And again. Maybe not on the same day, but I’d write notes on how to do it better than the last time.

See, confronting failure – repetitive failure – and trying your best to figure out why you failed to do better is called learning. That’s how you progress in your career, your personal life, your relationships, yourself. Failure has never been out here to get us: it’s been here to help us.

Hopefully, this weird lesson of baking, stress reduction, and learning to fail is helpful to everyone. I know that not everyone who reads my blogs are students, so hopefully for that crowd, this youngster's advice has been helpful, too.

Wishing you all a great start to your summer, and I’ll see you next time
Bea ❤️