I spent hours in the kitchen, trying to impress my guests.
I made a Thai dish I can’t even pronounce. For six people.
I arranged it artfully on plates, garnished it with black sesame seeds and thin strips of shallot. A masterpiece!
It was a gesture of care, of love. I wanted to offer my guests an experience, not just a meal.
I placed the portions on the table with a kind of quiet pride, the way I usually do when I offer something I’ve poured all my effort and heart into.
And then, without hesitation, one of the guests took a bottle of ketchup FROM MY OWN FRIDGE and poured half of it over his plate. Mixed everything. Ate with pleasure. Said it was good.
I don’t know what showed on my face. Inside, though, I felt like I was going to explode. Not because he put ketchup on it. But because, in a single move, he erased all the hours of work, attention, delicacy, everything I had put into that plate.
I realized it wasn’t the first time I’d felt this. I was flooded by a very familiar feeling: that no matter how much I bend over backwards, how beautifully I arrange things, how much heart I put into everything I do, someone will always come and f- up my work.
But there’s something else. The ketchup was in my house.
I bought it. He didn’t come in hiding the bottle in his pocket.
So I asked myself:
How many times in my life have I handed people the tools to destroy what I built with care?
How many times have I left the door open to be invalidated?
How many times have I fried my soul and given everything without setting any kind of boundary?
When I calmed down, I realized the real lesson might be this:
That I should offer without caring what the other person does with my gift, as an exercise in letting go.
I should give from a place of abundance, not of need.
I should stop confusing generosity with the desire to be validated.
And I should be able to put something beautiful on the table: a meal, a gesture, a word, and not cling to the other’s reaction to confirm my worth.
I give, because that’s who I am.
What they do with what they receive is their business.
It doesn’t diminish me, betray me, or erase me.
I remain whole even when my gift is not recognized.
Maybe true generosity begins where I stop controlling what I leave behind.
It’s not about offering or not offering something.
Maybe next time I’ll start by deciding what I keep and what I no longer put on the table, and to whom I give, without expectations.