Life is Like a Cupcake

Musings created during a writing activity with students calle "Life is..."

Life is Like a Cupcake


Life is like a cupcake, a concoction of ingredients topped with frosting that becomes something unique. The liner represents our beginnings – the place from which we each come. Some cupcake liners are pink; others are yellow. Still others are silicone. Each of us has a different background and upbringing, and it is this structure that shapes us into who we are.

The recipe for making cupcakes is like life’s rules. Instead of adding three eggs and beating until frothy, we follow the Golden Rule and determine whether each of our actions is appropriate for the situation at hand. The resulting batter, poured into the paper liners and baked in the oven becomes a cupcake, which is like each person. It’s size, shape, texture, and appeal is determined by which ingredients have been added to the batter.

Each cupcake, no matter how carefully made, turns out slightly different. Each of us is unique, though like cupcakes, we come in batches. We grow up in a community, a society at large, just as cupcakes come in groups of 12 or 24. In addition, the texture of cupcakes is neither liquid smooth nor teeth-cracking hard. Life isn’t either; events, situations, and feelings can be described in shades of gray, with right or wrong, true or false hard to define.

The frosting on top of the cupcake defines the cupcake as more than a muffin – it becomes dessert. The frosting is like our families and friends, the people who make life worth living. The sprinkles and cherries represent those joyous moments in life that are sometimes spread far apart. They exist, nonetheless, and make life worth living and the cupcake worth eating.

Life is like a cupcake, a combination of separate ingredients that, when combined, become rich and exciting.