Light and Sweet

I read an excerpt from a 2016 interview with Anthony Bourdain where he mentioned he got two coffees each morning, ordered light and sweet. He went on to say that coffee “is a beverage, not a lifestyle,” which struck me as odd. Firstly, because he was a chef who revered food and drink - why not make all you ingest a lifestyle if it’s your bread and butter (so to speak). Secondly, as a morning ritual, coffee is an ingrained part of most people’s life, so it seems only natural that it would take on the virtues of how one might style their existence. But then, how do we style our existence?

I style mine in absolute, God-fearing, reverence to Hard Work (capital H, capital W). I have been the last person to leave a darkened office building more times than I can count for monetary compensation that warranted a 2:45pm “see ya” to corporate. I have slogged through miles of punishing runs and hours of grueling workouts while tired, sick, and/or mentally exhausted because I refused to take time away from my desk to prioritize my physical health and I didn’t believe my physical health was being seen to if I wasn’t breaking a sweat. I wear long hours and tough days and work stories that are honestly difficult to believe like badges of honor; scar tissue that lets the world know I’ve faced the slings and arrows of myriad workforces and come out the other side stronger.

I am, I learned at the beginning of this year, a “discomfort seeker.” I do not put much value in the trophies not won by punishing competition and distrust things freely given. I found myself recoiling internally when collegiate friends and acquaintances spoke of gap years and swaths of time devoted to “finding [them]self,” because I knew the truth. The truth is that the next best version of you is on top of the next mountain you break your back to climb and you don’t meet them so much as pass a bloodied baton from your calloused hands to theirs as they set off on the next leg of the unwinnable race that is your life.

I still believe that discomfort is the key to growth and repair. Lessons and skills are solidified in our minds only after we’ve waded through the disorienting waters of not knowing. Muscles grow when they are pushed to break and rebuild. Moments of profound reward come at the end of some pretty demanding trials (i.e. marathons, childbirth, pregnancy, schooling, illnesses cured, deconstruction ahead of renovation or reimagination), but maybe I’m overlooking the comfortable, alluring yin to discomfort’s promising yang. Because the fact remains that I often look back over stretches of my career and despair in the feeling that I’m stalled despite (or, maybe, horrifyingly because of) the terrain I’ve traversed. That I’ve systematically chugged down black coffee on a daily basis to earn my right to caffeination when I could have achieved the same ends with pumpkin-spiced concoctions and brought, if not joy, then some softness to the journey in small part.

So, here I am, attempting for the first time in a long time to soften the edges around my will to work. I’m looking for moments of ease in an arena I’ve conditioned myself to play mercilessly full-contact. I’m trying to stay sharp, knowing that ‘iron sharpens iron’ and I owe it to myself to inquire not only about the work people undertook to get where they are, but how how they disassociate from it long enough to expand their gaze and acknowledge new horizons.

My instinct, even now, is to open the aperture of my vision of the future by doing battle with the here and now, but apertures tend to widen when pressure is released rather than applied. So, I’m taking my coffee lighter and sweeter as I face my day and growing, self-imposed to-do list. In time I hope to balance my prolonged discomfort-seeking outlook on achievement with some comfort-seeking behavior. It’s a shift that, right now, seems daunting…just how I like it.