Tweaking- It's Not About The Chocolate Chips

Have you ever stood over a pan of chocolate chip cookies and cried?  I have.  It was just this very day that I did that very thing.  Let me explain and please bear with me as I go between two seemingly unrelated things- I promise they are connected.

I love chocolate chip cookies.  I have always known how to make them.  I memorized the recipe when I was about 10 years old and have made chocolate chip cookies dozens of times.  It's a simple recipe- 1 stick butter, 1/2 cup shortening, etc.  Bake in the oven.  Dunk in cold milk.  Let the happiness begin.  Easy, right?  Well, it was until lately.

I have been in a fight with chocolate chip cookies for a couple of years now.  Every time I try making them, they turn out wrong- they are flat or the bottoms are slightly brown or they don't cook all the way through.  I haven't made a successful batch of chocolate chip cookies in many, many moons.  I have a sister who makes absolutely perfect chocolate chip cookies- it is one of the many reasons I envy her. 

For well over a year now, I have been immensely frustrated with my life.  My dating life is non-existent.  My non-dating social life is on life support.  Attempts to stir up a social life and dating possibilities have fallen flat.  My job-related stress has gotten so bad that it has made me physically ill on occasion.  And just within the last two weeks, I gave a peanut butter cookie to a highly allergic 4-year old (don't worry, she only barfed on the carpet in the church and on the sidewalk on the way home) and a dog hit my car! (Yes, the dog actually hit me.  I have the dent in my driver's side door as proof.) I did go get a lovely deep-tissue massage yesterday and while it was painful and wonderful at the same time, my tension level was obvious enough for the masseuse to mention it- she must've been able to tell that I was tense because she used enough pressure that I'm fairly certain she could have pulled my head clean off my body with just a bit more effort.

So, this afternoon, when I decided that I would try to bring a bit of cheer to some of my neighbors, after having already had a good ugly cry during the children's program while I was at church, I stood and cried when my cookies turned out disastrous.  They were flat, chewy (not the good kind of chewy), not holding together.  My failed attempts at cookies were emblematic of everything that  has been going askew in my life.  I stood and stared at my cookies and cried.

And then, I did something I've not ever done before- I threw away and entire batch of chocolate chip cookies!

And I started over.

Only this time, I did a couple of things differently.  I used a little more flour, made the cookies a little bit smaller, and cooked them at a lower temperature.

Oh, what a difference it made!  My cookies went from this (Exhibit A):

To this (Exhibit B):

And oh, how delicious they were!  I didn't have to do anything major- just take what I already knew how to do, and tweak a little, and I could get the results I wanted.

So, as I was staring at my beautiful cookies and knowing I wouldn't need to apologize for the sad state of my offering to others, I had one of those "A-ha! Why haven't I figured this out before?" moments and I was taught a great lesson.

We have all been given the tools we need to succeed in life, the recipe, if you will.  And sometimes, we can try and try to do things a certain way and they are going to turn out similar to Exhibit A.  And we can try again and do it the same way and they'll still turn out that way.  Or, we can step back, think of how we can tweak what we already know.  Not change anything major- just little things like increased time for personal meditation or more time serving others.  Perhaps a new style of music to help life our mood or less time in front of the television and more time outdoors. 

So, my goal this week is to make little tweaks in my life.  I don't know exactly what those will be.  But they will happen and then I will end up with what I want- my life will be as awesome as Exhibit B!

It's all the same ingredients- just tweak the recipe!