to have or to eat (waxing philosophical with anna and alice, my sweet nieces)

i never used to understand this, but there are certain things in life you simply cannot do. many of us firmly believe that a person should be able to do whatever they want in this life, and i suppose in a perfect world that might be true. however, you simply cannot have your cake and eat it too. it's a tough lesson to learn and can only really truly be learned when you eat your cake and find that, indeed, you can't have it anymore. it seems when you have your cake you can still believe some kind of illusion or idea that if you were to eat it, you could still somehow have it. that whole scenario is just make believe, and you end up believing what you want every time. but when you actually eat your cake, then it becomes painfully obvious that, yep, it's just like they said - you can't have it anymore. your cake is gone and you've got to live with that. so no matter what you believe the reality is, you've got to decide which you want - to have your cake, or to eat it - before you make a move.

so choose. because you just can't have both.