It's probably time for a new coffee-maker.
I would describe the temperature of a fresh pot of coffee from my coffee-maker as...warm. Does anyone really like warm coffee? I don't. So I've added the additional step in my morning coffee routine of microwaving my coffee before pouring it into my thermo-mug. I've thought, it's just one more little thing, so I do it.
But, there are more steps involved than I'm admitting to myself (which probably simply makes my opening comment even more true). I have to pour the coffee pot coffee into a glass mug (so that I can microwave it — you know what happens when you microwave metal) and then pour that into my thermo-mug. This all seems to create an ever-increasing trail of items that need to be cleaned, so I also wash the glass mug (another step). If this is getting a bit tedious even to read, imagine what it feels like to do it. But, I digress....
This morning, while cleaning the glass mug, I dropped it in the sink. Before I could even stop myself, I blurted out, "How does this even happen?!?".
Wait, what?
It's easy to see how it happened; I dropped it.
Besides the relatively benign significance of this (non)-event, I couldn't help but notice an unanticipated kind of echo in my unfiltered blurt — because I'm mumbling something like that more and more to myself..."how does that even happen?".
Among other things, the mood reflected in my question is that whatever is happening, shouldn't be. So, it's not really a question after all. It’s really a statement — a statement of frustration — and that's the part worth noting. There's an assumption in there somewhere and it appears to be growing. Now I'm suspecting the question is not my real question anyway. As I've pondered the dynamic a bit, I'm detecting something else the question might be revealing — a growing spirit that believes life owes me something that it isn't delivering.
I am becoming increasingly aware how much I expect life largely to work, especially if I make conscious efforts to the likelihood of it doing so. For example, have you ever noticed the primary emotion you sometimes feel when you’ve consciously tried to keep something from happening ahead of time and it happens anyway? Anger, for me, is a common indicator of this. So, it is useful for me to at least notice it.
It is likely the case that we all have desires, if not expectations, that life will increasingly cooperate with us. We are even willing to invest in that possibility. But, the often undetected feature of these desires or expectations is that we are owed this possibility, especially when we’ve put forth effort to realize it.
When you stop and think about it, it's actually surprisingly true how often, in fact, that it does work out this way (at least for some people — but, that's a whole other story). But, too often, that simply reinforces our notion that the more we do along these lines, the more we can expect the benefits of doing so. And, this is most exposed when it doesn’t happen.
It is a faulty assumption that life owes us anything. While it is amazingly true that there are many benevolences in life, that still doesn’t translate to mean that it owes them to us. When we get this wrong, we set ourselves up for many unfortunate dynamics and, therefore, conclusions.
In spite of the stupidity of doing so, it would not be too hard for me to conclude that life is somehow conspiring against me…that a coffee mug falling out of my hand is somehow proof of that. But, conflating these two particular things is not only a bit weird, it also points out some of my basic working assumptions right now.
After all, it is probably more likely true that I exist for the benefit of life m, rather than that life exists for the benefit of me. When a perspective about such things is more in tune with reality, it is also more likely that the benefits involved are mutual.
Life really doesn’t owe me anything.
So, now that that’s settled, it’s still likely just time for a new coffee-maker.
