Life will inevitably sharpen our edges, revealing what’s inside us when we’re shaken or rattled. What spills over—joy or bitterness—depends on what we’ve filled our cup with.
Anshu Arora
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The spelling of the aroma of a freshly brewed coffee for me is: happiness. The flavour on the palette is the purest form of joy similar to what I experience whilst travelling to my most favourite place in the world. This is just an introduction to the many experiences I have when I buy coffee, smell coffee or see it getting roasted or brewed, leave alone drinking it. Many research documents state that coffee has long symbolised intellect, creativity, and ‘a streak of revolution’. It is said that in earlier times, coffee houses where it was served, represented a form of free, open discourse space where new ideas could be discussed without prejudice.
Well, isn’t it evident by now, how I absolutely LOVE COFFEE!
But this magazine isn’t about Javaphiles, and hence my stance:
Basis a popular analogy, assume, you are holding a cup of coffee. Someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere. Instead of exploring my true emotion when someone accidentally spills my coffee, let us understand a completely different perspective through this question:
Q: Why did you spill the coffee?
A: Well, because someone bumped into me!
Wrong answer!
You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.
Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.
What? Yes! Whatever is inside the cup is what spills out.
It’s been two years since The Mind Diaries has been carrying out this much appreciative venture of helping us all take an informed decision about what is it that we are filling in our cups. How important is it to be mindful about what we intentionally as well as unintentionally fill our life cups with. We are well aware of the mind-body connection: how thoughts can impact health and well-being. Embracing practices like gratitude, affirmations, and healthy lifestyle choices can strengthen the mind-body connection. We know now, that cultivating a positive mental state is crucial for overall well-being, resilience, and harmony between the mind and body. Each drop into the great, the small, bold and expressive 30ml ESPRESSO shot of our lives matters. The seven self-care pillars: mental, emotional, physical, environmental, spiritual, recreational, and social make for a perfect shot.
Though I like my coffee bitter, bold and strong, I have lately seen myself bending towards the softer side of things in order to make this very fine shot of espresso-life for myself. Have you ever wondered why people often say ‘soft’ like it’s a bad thing? As if it implies weakness. If you notice, the fact is that people love soft things: linen, clothing, blankets or stuffed toys. Not many crave sharp edges, unless there is a professional need. We mostly crave comfort. But as human beings, we’re expected to be hard. To be tough. To develop a thicker skin and learn not to cry when life hurts. And life does, inevitably, hurt.
The fact is that the world will sharpen our edges. It has certainly sharpened mine.
Therefore, when life comes along and sharpens or shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out.
“Pause, and think what comes out when you get rattled.
When life gets tough, what spills over?
Joy, gratitude, peace and humility?
Anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting tendencies?
Life provides the cup, the colour, size, material and shape. It is not in your hands.
But how YOU choose to fill it, is.”
To delve deeper into how we should fill our cups, let us go back to the popular statement:
“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”
– Charles Cooley
I understood that most often we are always worried about what someone else thinks. Be it our parents, partner or someone else. As long as we are trapped in what others think, we will never be able to find what matters to us.
I had a vision of the life I wanted. I still have that. I haven’t made it yet!
There were people who were living parts of the life I wanted. The visuals and examples of that vision were scattered in small parts around me. I started interacting with these fragments and these people. It was like an internship with those chosen fragments.
I went out there and tried the things that made fragments of my vision. I gave it my 100 per cent and then I stayed honest to my feelings. The people, I interacted with to explore those fragments were smart and bright and many had even given up a lot to be that person. It was indeed a heady inside journey, where you let go and let that fragment manoeuvre you. You surrender to that fragment and its experience. Hence, I experienced my fragments and then asked, “Is that the life I want?” I asked, would I like to be this when I am 50? Would I like to do this every day? Would I like to lead this life? Is that where I want to be? Every day of my life?
When the answer was NO, I chose to try a new path.
I think, today at 46, I am still seeking some alternatives, or a new path. With regard to completion of that image, I am 60 per cent there, but not 100 per cent. I realised I was somewhere living in what are called echo chambers. An echo chamber is “an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own.” Any place where we are surrounded by only like-minded people. We’re surrounded by the same thinking.
The term is a metaphor based on an acoustic echo chamber, in which sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure. (Me. I was the hollow enclosure.)
Long stay in an echo chamber in life leads to confirmation bias and selective exposure. Confirmation bias can create a self-reinforcing cycle, in which individuals are consistently exposed to perspectives that validate their existing views.
I understood that the very difficult first step would be to just open yourself up to new experiences and new role models. And that brings us to what Cooley said:
“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”
We live in this perception of a perception of ourselves. Hence my identity is made initially by what my parents think I should be, then governed by partners or even by what the college or university thinks I should achieve.
While you’re living in that bubble, in that echo chamber, getting to what you really want to do is impossible. Practically speaking, that process of self-excavation and actualisation first requires being exposed. You can’t be what you can’t see. If I never visualised a speaker on a big stage speaking a content that makes sense, I would have never wanted to be a TED speaker.
If I never met a professional who explained, “More substantial work, not more work” is the key, I would not have been following the format of life I currently do.
I won’t be, if I don’t know what that feels like, if I don’t know what that looks like, if I don’t know what it takes. The biggest challenge is to step out of that echo chamber. I am trying. I am making a conscious effort to do that. This first step is about being exposed to unique experiences and role models, those that fit the visual of your big picture.
Second step is to live that life: truly LIVE IT, spend time with that fragment, observe it close, even though from afar.
And then the third step is to answer the question: does this resonate with the image I have? Is it truly that? Can I add that to my final picture? Yes? No? It’s great for that person, but does that work for me? That lifestyle? That 24×7 connection? That smell in your clothes? That make-up or heels? Anything and everything that is a part of that fragment.
What then becomes integral is to know the right approach to validate the answer.
Do I want this process and not, do I want this result?
I am still ‘under-process’ of understanding many processes that fascinate me. When I lived some processes, they did not turn out to be what I thought they were at the core. Many times, it wasn’t what I thought it was, and that’s ok, because many a times IT WAS AS WELL. It would be an honest statement that I am still in search for another piece that would complete my picture.
It does come down to my coffee cup again! Am I filling my cup with these experiences? These explorations? These out of the echo-chamber experiences?
Let us honour this two-year TMD journey by being intentional about filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, resilience, positivity, and kindness, gentleness and love for others. Then add to it the out of echo-chamber experiences and its validations.
You do have doubts on the journey. I have saved this paragraph from a spiritual book and keep going back to it, when I am lost. It says: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think of such things.”
What we feed into our minds will either eat us up or fill us up.
Do ask yourselves: “what’s in my cup?”
While I get my coffee!