The zen of coffee making and persevering

IMG_8043.JPG

Sometimes I have the foresight to make coffee before I go to bed. I load the water in the tank, pile the coffee grounds in the basket, and apply a sticky note to the front of the machine to remind me that all I have to do is press the “on” button to start the brew the next morning.

There came a morning when I was tired of it all. I dragged myself out of bed out of a sense of obligation and dragged myself around the house, resentful that I wasn’t still dreaming strange adventures or lost in oblivion, and generally ready to retire except for the fact that I had “real-world” obligations hanging over my head.

I grumbled into the kitchen and was caught short by the little sign on the coffee machine.

JUST PRESS ON.

Oh. Right.

There will always come a morning (it could be any time of day, but it always feels like morning) when you’re ready to quit, chuck it all, stop doing what you’re doing, end the misery — and if there’s something about those feeling that feels like defeat, then, oh yes, it’s because it is defeat.

“You only fail if you stop writing,” my mentor-I-never-met Ray Bradbury said. And it’s true: You’re not really defeated until you quit.

If you find yourself stuck or miserable and wishing you were anywhere else than pursuing your life’s dream — because I sincerely hope at some point what you are doing did have something to do with pursuing your dreams — just press on. Keep going.

That’s the way to push through the malaise and misery and find yourself in a better mood. If you just press on, at some point something will remind you why you wanted to do this, maybe even reignite the spark and push you to a new dream beyond the first one.

Just press on.

At the very least, maybe you’ll get coffee out of it.

Published by WarrenBluhm

Wordsmith and podcaster, Warren is a reporter, editor and storyteller who lives near the shores of Green Bay with his wife, two golden retrievers, Dejah and Summer, and Blackberry, an insistent cat. Author of It's Going to Be All Right, Echoes of Freedom Past, Full, Refuse to be Afraid, Gladness is Infectious, 24 flashes, How to Play a Blue Guitar, Myke Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, A Bridge at Crossroads, The Imaginary Bomb, A Scream of Consciousness, and The Imaginary Revolution.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: