Can you have cake and eat it too?

The idiom “you can’t have cake and eat it too” suggests that a person cannot consume a cake whilst wishing to retain it. As a child, I never understood how this idiom made any sense, since having a cake undoubtedly means you have to eat it or give it away eventually, since it will never last. 

To this day, I still do not understand this idiom, yet, instead of letting it be, I have formed my own view regarding this idiom. The view that it is a phrase that tells us we cannot hoard something forever.

Why is that so? To understand my perspective, one can imagine themselves as a baker. As a baker, your life is built on baking cakes and pastries every day, though you bake millions of goods a year you rarely ever have the chance to savour them, as your goal is to sell them. If you did consume the cakes, not only is your health jeopardized, but the question of financial security also arises. In essence, this means that even if we are the baker, we have to let the cake go and to not hoard it, no matter what. Despite giving you the benefit of having more goods than others; it simultaneously destroys the aspect of earning any money. 

Even though, dear readers, you may argue that I am out of my mind to suggest the baker analogy relates to the idiom, since the baker is in a lose-lose situation whereby not only does he not get to have the cake upon creating it, but what’s more, he does not even have the chance to savour it. As stated, he still earns money in the end as such it is not really lose-lose, rather a reflection of life. A person can spend years building something, planning it, but in the end they do not have the chance to enjoy it even after putting so much effort. Regardless of your choice, there will be opportunities that will come your way. It is up to you on what and which to abandon. Every choice, more often than not, leads to huge sacrifices that can reshape one’s life.

This is ever more the reality when discussing Malaysian Politics in modern day. As of late, the concept of ‘reformasi’ has become a joke to some, as the rakyat continuously blame their plight on the government, arguing that the promised reforms were never delivered. This is rather upsetting when the blame has started to shift between parties, who spend years upon years fighting, advocating, or in other words' baking the cake’, not realising that when they finally receive the mandate it comes with a heavy toll. A toll accompanied by a poisonous teammate, who is the same enemy the ‘reformist’ has been trying to topple for years. 

Dear readers, this is when the idiom returns, remember I stated above ‘a choice more often than not leads to huge sacrifices that can reshape one’s life’. When the Prime Minister decided to take up the mandate and form a coalition, instead of refusing to work and wait for a new opportunity, was it truly in the name of ‘unity’, or did it come at the cost of abandoning the principles he stood for? Was it a genuine commitment to national solidarity or an attempt to cling on to power? 

With the excuse of protecting the ‘cake’ they had painstakingly baked over the years, the reformist failed to realise that the very enemy they have invited in, has now not only refused to acknowledge their hard-earned creation, they instead took a sledgehammer to the very foundations upon which it stood, seemingly more concerned with asserting their own relevance than respecting the legacy they had inherited. The situation or rather personification I brought up above may appear out of scope or even relevant to the idiom of, “you can’t have a cake and eat it too”, yet, this is how I imagine the idiom as it is. For I hold the view that the idiom doesn’t mean you can have two good things at once, rather it is to make the right choices, not hoarding onto something for in the end you might lose the cake without eating nor ever getting it back.

To elaborate, we can analyse the words of Sangeet Kaur’s words. Sangeet Kaur is the daughter of the late Karpal Singh, a legendary political paramount in Malaysia history. During the ‘referendum’ within her party, where members were given the choice to continue working or leave the government, she said ‘The fact is we cannot work with these coalition partners’. However, relating back to the analogy of the cake, her words fall flat in reality. Now not only does her party not want to lose the cake, neither do they want to sell it or even eat it! How can a party continue to side with toxic partners? This is not a relationship, not a game but a nation at hand. One needs to either choose to keep the cake, and be quiet or sell it off and grumble that you have not earned enough, that is how life is. Yet, some such as the Prime Minister and political parties refuse to do so, leading to the cake to rot and become useless.

Fundamentally these are my views, I am not blaming nor criticizing the Prime Minister or any political parties for taking a stance to work with their long-term enemies, since he might have believed that when a nation’s future is at stake, even a wolf in sheep’s wool will concede their disguise to ensure a better future for the next generation. The crux of me bringing my view of the idiom and the analogies is to remind you all dear readers to reflect on life. We have to treat this idiom rather seriously, for making the wrong choice can lead to huge opportunity losses that may not only affect you, but your family, your friends and future acquaintances. It is never wrong to eat the cake when you have it, for you might have been hungry and needed something to end the horrid feeling; but keep in mind it is also never wrong to retain it, as you might intend to give it to a friend. Whatever the choice may be, never give up your principles, never take an opportunity before thinking through, and always live life as it is.