Katherine Sabbath: The Work That Defines You

I think the reason I got into journalism is just because I love hearing people’s stories. I love getting a look at other people’s perspectives: What motivates them, what moves them, what totally freaks them out. The bummer, to me, is the huge swaths of interviews that never make the final story. They’re interesting, but ultimately, extraneous, and so no one but me ever hears them.

Not anymore.

From time to time, I’ll post an interesting insight or tidbit here, just because I think it needs to be shared with the world, like this insight from Katherine Sabbath, an Australian high school teacher-turned-baker who’s taking Instagram by storm with her delightfully whimsical, unexpected cakes. (You can see that story — and the droolworthy photos — on Delish.com.)

Katherine’s made dozens — possibly hundreds — of cakes at this point, all stunning in their own right, but when I asked her which one(s) she was most proud of, I expected to hear her regale me with stories of insanely difficult cakes, ones that she thought she’d never pull off, but instead, she said:

“I love any cake I make for my mom or grandmother or brother. I  made a really rich peanut butter chocolate cake for my brother, when he was serving in the Australian Defense Force. It was a three-month boot camp and he hadn’t had cake for 3 months, and he asked me to make him a cake. I cut it into 6 takeaway containers; he scarfed an entire container of cake in 2 minutes!

He’s a man of few words, so to see him eat it so fast and see that he really missed my food meant a lot. He may not say he loves me because he’s a dude and he just completed a boot camp, so he’s not exactly talking about his feelings, but that said it all.”

The work she’s most proud of isn’t the most elaborate, marvelous display of engineering and cake decorating know-how; it was one that’s beauty was severed into resealable plastic containers, hidden away and smuggled into a boot camp, because it had meaning behind it. Her cake connected them, conveying things that couldn’t be conveyed verbally (or at least weren’t at the moment), and in telling me that story, she revealed something about herself: The work that defines her life is the work that has love — and a deeper human connection behind it.

At the risk of sounding woo-woo, it made me think of how true that is for all of us: How much more rewarding our work is when it can be used to directly impact another person’s life. Sure, what we do can be gratifying on its own, but the things that truly shape our lives are the things that connect us to other people, that fill us up, rather than just being pretty or impressive to look at.

What work are you most proud of? What does that reveal about what motivates you, and ultimately, who you are?

 

This post is part of Life Between Weekends’ Tuesday Takeaway series. Every Tuesday, we’ll share the most compelling insight we’ve gleaned from a book, movie, tour, documentary or article to inspire you during the workday.