A simple but bizarre thing happened to me the other day.
I was making coffee and I was with a friend. No, THAT is not bizarre. I make slow drip coffee party because I love the process, it makes the MAKING of coffee part of the ritual rather than just slamming the cup of coffee (although the joy of that is not lost on me some days! I boil the water, grind the beans, and use one of those single cup reusable filters.
Sounds good, but I generally make a mess. The other day, I poured the boiling water too fast and it splashed the grinds over the edge of the filter and down the cup.
Why am I writing this to you? Just to paint the picture that my friend saw this process – water, grinds, mug. Well, I went to clean up the coffee and in order to clean up my coffee mug, I ran some water on the handle, around the rim and some water went into the cup. My friend was astounded that I didn’t pour out the coffee, clean the mug and start again. Her exact words were “BUT, now you put tap water in your coffee. Doesn’t that make it grosss? Like water in your milk?”
WHAT? She just saw the entire process of WATER through the grinds. Coffee IS water, why would more make it gross?
So, it dawned on me that once again, it’s all the perspective. To my friend, once you run water through the grinds it becomes something else, entirely unrelated to water.
It’s like a class I took in college called “Deviant Behavior”. The professor asked a girl to spit in a cup for 1/2 hour while he lectured on something about acceptable behavior and context for social behavior. At the end, he asked the girl to drink the cup of spit. Gross, right? But what’s the difference of doing it that way versus swallowing your saliva all day just because that’s what we do as humans? It’s the perspective.
So, what is there in your life, that if you looked at it from a different perspective, might make more sense? Is there something you have or do that is like coffee, that maybe you forgot came from water? Are you trying to do something that is seemingly too difficult, but if you changed your perspective, you may find a more natural way to accomplish it?
Oh, I should tell you, my “friend” watching me make coffee is 6 years old. Does that change your perspective on the story?
And, her comment caught me off guard because for an instant, I thought, “oh yeah, I should pour out the coffee. That IS gross.” Does that change your perspective or me? oops!
