Okay, so this is probably just me, but like… you ever get exactly what you want and then completely ruin it for yourself? Because that’s where I’m at right now. Went to the local bake-off, right? Small-time thing, charity fundraiser, just for fun. And I actually did it. I actually baked my signature lemon poppy seed — you know, the one everyone at work *raves* about when I bring it in for birthdays, like it’s a whole event? Got it all nice and pretty, a little dusting of powdered sugar, some fresh zest, nothing too fancy but it looked *good*. And I’m there, you know, feeling kinda proud, like, "Yeah, I made this. I actually did something creative outside of, like, spreadsheets and quarterly reports." And then… Then I saw *her* cake. And it wasn’t even that it was a fancy cake, it was just… her *display*. The little perfectly lettered sign, the tiny edible flowers arranged with tweezers, the way her cake stand caught the light, like it was a prop from a professional photo shoot. And suddenly my perfectly nice, delicious, probably-gonna-win-over-a-lot-of-people lemon poppy seed looked… homemade. Not in a charming way, just… like I’d forgotten to bring my A-game. Like I’d shown up to a performance review with notes scribbled on a napkin, while she had a whole PowerPoint deck, animated transitions and everything. And I couldn’t even enjoy my own slice when they finally let us taste the stuff. Couldn’t taste the lemon, couldn’t taste the poppy seed, just kept thinking about her perfect little setup, wondering if I should have thought about a *theme* or something. (God, a theme!) Am I the only one who does this? Who gets so hung up on the optics of everyone else’s thing that it just sucks all the joy out of your own achievement? Like, I KNOW my cake tastes good, everyone says so, it’s literally foolproof, but now it’s just… not enough. It’s not *polished* enough. It’s not *extra* enough. And I’m sitting there, smiling, nodding, pretending to enjoy my own dang cake while secretly feeling like a total imposter. Like, even my hobbies are now a competition I’m losing because I didn’t think about the aesthetic. Je suis foutue, man. Totally. Anyone else just… struggle to enjoy anything without comparing it to someone else’s highlight reel? Or is it just my brain, forever stuck in "what could be better" mode? Feels pretty lonely out here, honestly.