Brewing a new coffee flavor delivers a Life lesson

You too can experience a Life that’s free from suffering if you can embrace it without resistance.

My mornings have to begin with the filter coffee that Vaani makes. Pardon my indulgence, but I believe she makes the best filter coffee in the world. So, outside of home, I will rarely try filter coffee. Everywhere else it has to be black coffee or the Americano, if it is Starbucks. Some weeks ago, Vaani and I felt that the brand of packaged coffee that we had been using for years now, Cothas, appeared to be losing its distinct flavor. So, reluctantly, we decided to switch to a new brand (for us), Leo, whose freshly-ground, custom-mixed, coffee powder was available at the neighborhood Nilgiri’s store. The first few days of drinking Leo coffee was an unusual experience. Naturally. The beans were different, the Leo coffee mix was ground fresh and obviously the flavor was its own. Not Cothas’, which I had got so accustomed to with over a decade of use. But over the past fortnight, something interesting happened. My mind no longer pined for the Cothas flavor. I got used to the new Leo flavor and soon started enjoying it.

This morning I reflected on the learning from this experience. Why was I able to adjust to the new flavor, though, initially, I kind of disliked it? I guess the fundamental reason was that I trusted Vaani’s choice of wanting to switch brands and her ability to make great, absolutely great, coffee. Second, I started appreciate the Leo flavor without letting my mind pine for Cothas. This experience pretty much sums up how we can all learn to deal with Life better. If we pause and reflect on Life deeply, we will find that Life is nothing but a series of experiences, a set of happenings, sometimes related and sometimes unrelated. Each experience brings with it a new flavor, a unique one – and surely not one that you may either want or like. The mind will rush to resist the new experience and the flavor it carries. But any form of resistance to whatever’s happening will always lead to suffering. So, the best way to deal with Life is to embrace each new event, and the new flavor it brings along, hold it and learn to appreciate it and value it for what it is. In the coffee-brand-switch story, Vaani and I have a choice. If we didn’t like Leo, we can switch to yet another brand and then one more and so on. Or we can give up drinking coffee altogether. But almost all Life events just happen to us – there is no freedom of choice. So, the only way we can be at peace within ourselves is when we accept the Life given to us and learn to appreciate and celebrate its flavor of the moment, in that moment!

When you learn to live this way, you will realize that anything can be faced – from a terminal health problem to a dysfunctional relationship issue to a job loss to financial stress to death – without suffering. Yes, there will be pain. Because when what you don’t like or want comes into your Life, there will be pain. But if you are willing to experiment and explore newer flavors of Life, even if they are untried, untested, unknown to you, you will find Life is wonderful and free from suffering, even if it is strange.

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In order to find time for yourself, simply create it!

If you can pause and reflect, for a quality period of time daily, the quality of your Life will undoubtedly improve.

Yesterday, at The Brew Room, a beautiful café in downtown Chennai, I caught a hand-written sign that read: “Everything gets better with coffee.” I smiled as I took a picture of this sign. And I thought to myself, how true this simple promotional line for coffee is – in a real world context.

If there’s one thing that we all need desperately in Life it is time. And if there’s one thing that’s available in abundance, and uniformly, to all of us it is time. To be sure, we have the same 24 hours at our disposal. Within our reach. No one has a minute more or a minute less than the other. Yet we scramble along, stumbling and falling, struggling and heaving, complaining forever that we don’t have enough time! Now, the reason why time seems elusive is because we expect all our responsibilities to be settled, all our tasks to be completed, all our goals to be achieved, before we sit down to experience some quality time for ourselves, with ourselves. That certainly is not going to happen. Because each gone moment is gone. It is never going to come back. With each moment that is past, we have lesser time on this planet. This is the bitter truth. And unless we invest time we are not going to be able to create quality time – for ourselves, our families and for doing what we love doing. Period. Just as investing money wisely helps multiply it, investing time wisely alone helps create time.

So, the simplest way to find that time for yourself is to create it. Just drop everything and sit down for 15 minutes to half-an-hour quietly, each day, and feel your breathing. Read something. Check Facebook. Listen to music. Just don’t be under pressure. Think through your day and week. Do this diligently, daily, and watch the quality of your work and Life improving with this practice. I am not sure really if “everything gets better with coffee” all the time, but everything does get better when you pause and reflect. As someone has wisely said, “Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”

Life lesson from a ‘Glorious’ Barista

Every once in a while it’s probably a great idea to sit back and count your blessings, feel grateful, for what you have and stop complaining about what you don’t!

Yesterday, at a crowded coffee kiosk, I first thought that the lone barista at the counter was struggling with the orders. Each customer in line would first seem irritated and then would immediately calm down and order her or his drink with utmost courtesy. In a bit, it struck me that the 20-something barista, Yashwant, was specially-abled – he could neither hear nor speak. He read your lips or you gestured. But he was full of beans! Cheerful and patient. He made me an excellent Americano and served it with the most confident, lively smile I have seen in some time now.

I sat at a table closer to the counter and, over my coffee, I observed Yashwant. He went about his work cheerfully. More customers swamped his kiosk as the hour went by. Kids, hurried shoppers, and young adults on a date. All of them would first shout out their order. And Yashwant would gesture to them, charming them with his endearing smile, that he can’t hear or speak. And then magic happened. The customers piped down, started feeling good and left the counter with their drink or meal __ happy, smiling, carrying back also Yashwant’s spirit and smile with them. I am sure each of them was infected, just as I was, by Yashwant’s inner joy! Yashwant is an Indian name that means ‘glorious’. This barista truly is! It didn’t matter to him that he was not able to hear or speak. It didn’t matter to him that his employer had not cared to put up a tent card at the counter that could have read: “Specially-abled Barista at work here. Makes the world’s best coffee though. Seek your patience and understanding!” What he didn’t have clearly did not matter to him! He was alive and having fun! (PS – my picture here of Yashwant is not the best because he was too shy and did not want me to photograph him. But hope you catch his spirit this morning!)

Yashwant: Truly Glorious!

Yashwant’s brew may have been the most awakening cup of coffee I have ever had. I re-learned a lesson that we all need to remember: “Lamenting over what you don’t have can make Life miserable. Living fully with what you have can, on the other hand, makes Life memorable!” And this lesson, every specially-abled person will teach you. In fact, in my entire Life, I haven’t met a specially-abled who is frustrated. On the other hand, fully endowed folks like us are the one who are complaining about Life, worrying, suffering and lamenting about what isn’t instead of loving what is! In reality, we are the disabled: we are handicapped, we are crippled __ because we have nailed our feet to the ground, we have clipped our own wings, with our imagined miseries.

Maybe we need a Yashwant moment every day! Just to remind us that Life’s worth living despite its inscrutability and its inadequacies. Hope you get inspired by my sharing. Hope you have a beautiful Friday and choose to live, to love and to celebrate what is and what you have today!