Reflections on a Hershey's Chocolate Bar

Last month I put on my Gingerbread Queen persona and lead a workshop in the fine art of gingerbread house building.  It was the first weekend of my new Optifit meal plan, when I was still trying to get used to not eating. And kick the cravings for carbs. I shopped for a big variety of candy to use as decor and landscaping for the gingerbread houses, and one of the things in my cart was a multi-pack of Hershey's Chocolate bars.  Broken into sections on the lines, they make an awesome cobblestone front walk in the snowy front gingerbread yard.  (You can see a chocolate walk in the gingerbread house picture in my journaling post of a few days ago.)

After the workshop, there were a few Hershey bars remaining, and they were sitting on top of all the rest of my supplies and left over candy, in a big basket in the garage.  Awaiting a holiday gingerbread construction project with friends and family.  One day, I noticed a Hershey bar wrapper on the table and thought to myself that Derek must have seen them in the garage.  Then the next day I noticed one sitting on the table. 

Every couple of days or so, I would notice that same Hershey bar sitting in the same spot on the table.  We don't do much eating at that table, now that no one is cooking at my house most days.  It will get piled with mail, and newspapers, and laptops, and stuff.  Then it will get cleared some, and piled upon again.  But every day I would notice that the chocolate bar remained, untouched, in the same exact spot. 

Last weekend as I was house cleaning, I decided to clear the table completely, and there was that chocolate bar sitting in the same exact spot.  It must have been right there for a couple of weeks, maybe more.  So I chose to leave it right there, kind of as a statement that it might as well give up.  I wasn't going to eat it!

What is so very interesting to me is that never once in all that time did I wish I could eat that chocolate bar.  I never desired that chocolate bar.  Didn't crave it.  Was never tempted by it, or felt deprived that I couldn't eat it up.  Never moved it, it made me feel powerful to let it be there and have no power over me.  I took a picture of that pitiful chocolate bar on it's semi-permanent spot on my table.  It had been trying to seduce me - and failed miserably!  (What is noteworthy here is that historically, many a chocolate bar has attempted to seduce me, and achieved great success!)

I noticed yesterday that the chocolate bar is now on the kitchen counter, someone ate a part of it, and left the rest sitting there. Took them two or three weeks to decide to go ahead and eat it, and even then they didn't have to eat the whole thing.  That's how normal people behave!  ◦

Reflections on a Hershey's Chocolate Bar