LOVE, Kloudiia

“I eat, so I am”

This slogan appeared to be the favourite of many who want to voice out their unique identity. They aren’t afraid to put on the extra kilos so long as they can enjoy the scrumptous food placed in front of them.

So, does what you eat say who you are? Maybe. But today, I’d like to talk about the way we eat that speaks of who we are.

Last week we were celebrating a friend’s birthday. In an experimental mood, I ordered a cocktail that I’ve never sampled before – lychee martini. I was told by my sister and the waitress that it is a strong drink, yet it is “very nice”.

Very nice was the right description, especially when it came with two lychees! Yeah…

Indeed, the drink was strong enough for me that with only a few sips (barely a quarter) I could already feel my face flushing.

When Stuart came, I eagerly pushed my martini to him and invited him to sample it. He took a sip and quickly nodded his head. Yeah, he liked the drink. But wait! He was about to take one of the lychees and put it in his mouth! The two lychees that I had patiently saved so that I could savour them towards the end!

He eyed me with a questioning look, as if to ask “May I eat this lychee?” and I said: “Wha, but I’m saving that for the last! You take one sip and now you want to eat my lychee!”

Slowly, he put the lychee back into the martini and gave me a “sad look”, as if to make me regret. Which I did. “Ok, I shall give you one lychee, ok?” His eyes brightened up again. Sheesh, he’s out to eat my lychee!

My sister chipped in at this time: “She’s always like that. If it’s me, I’d have eaten the lychee long ago! I wouldn’t wait.”

“I’m saving the best for the last, what do you know?” I said.

Do you save the best for last? Or do you take your favourite food first? Those who are like me would argue that we are practising delayed gratification, and isn’t this being preached ever so fervently in books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”? So we can’t be wrong, can we?

The other camp has another argument: by the time you reached the end, you may not have the appetite anymore or you could be too full to enjoy your favourite food. Well, they’re right in a sense.

Let’s extend this further and see if such a habit or trait is a representation of our character.

If I say that people who doesn’t practise delayed self-gratification tend to have a quick temper, would you agree? I have observed that people who want things immediately have no qualms to flare up when they feel upset, only to regret later at times. On the other hand, those who can wait to be gratified have a higher tendency to keep their emotions in check, at least for a while longer before they unleash their anger.

Celebrations, too, I realised are affected by this. Could instant gratification means more celebrations for little successes in life, while delayed gratitifcation means only celebrating big successes? Does the former gets easily excited while the latter is more nonchalant about most of the stuff?

Hmm… maybe some food for your thought of the day.

Meanwhile, back to my dinner that night.

Stuart finished at least half the glass of the cocktail, and I guess he couldn’t wait any longer, he said: “Your lychees are drowning! Let me save them.” If vision can kill, he would be dead by now. So he took one and gulped it. I kept mine.

At last, when we were toasting the birthday boy, I proudly announced that “I’m going to eat my lychee now” and slowly savoured it. Hmm…

So, would you eat the lychee first, or would you wait? What type of person are you?

What’s my point? How we carry out the daily activities in our lives can actually symbolise more than what they seem to be. Again, it’s in the little things that we see great prospects of having more.

Like the saying that goes, how you do one thing is how you do everything! Like how I drink my lychee martini is the same as how I eat my noodles – I noticed that I had kept the meatball (only one by the way) till the last when I had my lunch earlier.