On cake, and eating it

Lately the saying "You can't have your cake and eat it too" has been rolling around in my head. It came up for me, I think, as I have struggled to reconcile being grateful for what I have but also wanting something different or more.

I want to have my house and dog and independence and a job that supports that lifestyle and also meets my needs for meaningful contribution, respect, equality and autonomy. I want a job that more than pays the bills and is personally fulfilling too. Or that at least leaves me with time, energy and money to pursue interests that are personally fulfilling.

Some would accuse me of being ungrateful, spoiled, unrealistic. They'd accuse me of wanting to have my cake and eat it too. My question is this: what's the point in having cake if you can't eat it?

Why should I have to choose between surviving and thriving, between financial security and my emotional and mental well-being? I see others who "have their cake and eat it too": colleagues who like their jobs, who make enough money to support their chosen lifestyles, who are treated with respect at work, who have the autonomy to decide how to do their work and balance the other important aspects of their lives.

In a phone conversation with a friend the other night, she observed that some people feel a sense of pride in not trying to eat the cake. They see virtue in accepting their lots in life and not getting all bent out of shape about what they don't have, even if other people do have it. "That's just the way it is," I imagine them saying. "Life isn't fair. You have to face reality and get on with it."

I can see the appeal in this philosophy, how it can offer relief from a mountain of struggles that seem impossible to win. Life isn't fair: bad things happen to good people, people die young, whole populations are wiped out by natural disaster. But if we accepted this philosophy when it comes to human institutions, there never would have been a civil rights movement. By accepting "that's just the way it is," we accept a position of powerlessness and become complicit in our own oppression. We stop daring to dream, stop asking for what we want, even stop asking ourselves what we want.

I dare to dream that we can create workplaces of partnership and equality. Where we acknowledge limited resources but come to collaborative decisions--all of us together, not just the "managers"--about how those resources are best used to achieve a collective vision. Where each person has the autonomy to decide for themselves how and when to accomplish the tasks they have chosen to take on. Where whole persons are acknowledged and nourished, and we no longer expect work to come first before all else: before self, family and friends. Where we can all have our cake and eat it too.