Day six without coffee. I have made the switch to tea and I feel much less reliant on it to get me through the day. By the end, I was drinking a coffee first thing in the morning and then switching to tea, but not really enjoying that first coffee. I was mostly just using it to get to my first tea of the day, but knew I needed it if I didn’t want to suffer a headache. Kind of like back when I was smoking and the first thing I would do was grab a coffee from the kitchen and head right out and light my cigarette. I enjoyed the sunrise, and the quiet, but I never enjoyed that first smoke of the day. It always tasted terrible, but I needed to get the terrible one out of the way to get to the good ones later. If I didn’t have a smoke first thing, and had one after I had gotten ready to face the day, then THAT one would have been gross. Who wants a gross cigarette after you’ve already resolved to take the world by storm? Not this fella!

Eventually I learned that if you don’t smoke any of them at all, none of them taste terrible , and once you hack, cough, and dislodge everything you’ve firmly smoked into your lungs, you feel a lot better during the run of a day. Kicking coffee lovingly, and gently, to the curb has brought me back to a very simple concept that I continually forget. Which is, if it’s not working for you, doesn’t serve a legitimate purpose, and/or has more cons than pros….step away. Granted it’s not always that easy, but sometimes it is. On occasion it’s as easy as simply saying “well, that’s over and done with,” and continuing on the trail you’re currently blazing. Doing so doesn’t mean that what you are walking away from is wrong, or bad, or any other negative word you can throw at it. Walking away just means that you have grown from, and past, the experience and are ready for whatever comes next. That you have gleaned some valuable insight into what you want or don’t want moving forward, and are able to adapt your plan of attack accordingly.

I used to always say that cigarettes were a great conversation starter, because it afforded me the opportunity to meet people without walking up to them awkwardly (at that point in my life, I did most things awkwardly…still do) and sparking a conversation was as easy as “have you got a light?” It always seemed that I met really interesting people in the smoking section at VFS. Sure, it may have taken me longer to find them if we didn’t all smoke, but I would have crossed paths with the ones I was meant to. It was the same with coffee. We would all crowd around a table, the aroma of freshly ground beans swirling all around, and the day was that much better for it. You can sit in the same circle and steep tea while steeping your soul in a pool of conversation and camaraderie, with the same end result.

It doesn’t matter so much what you do, but who you do it with. No matter what you choose to drive down life’s highway, there are countless twists and turns, and a myriad of back roads you can take. The journey is, truly, what you make it. That being said, there are a finite number of seats, make sure you’ve got the best people to fill them.