On 'that constant tension' in our minds
All about Stress and how a mediocre cup of coffee changed how I see everything.
Stress is just a gap between expectations and reality.
Actually, two gaps.
The first one you already know.
You’re somewhere you don’t want to be.
At work, but your brain is with your kids.
Or you’re watching TV, but Slack is screaming and now you wanna answer that. That low-grade pull between where you are and where you think you should be.
That’s stress.
But quite interestingly, the opposite situation could also be stressful.
You’re exactly where you want to be. Doing the right thing, fully believing in it.
And yet, someone else doesn’t see it.
Your partner thinks you’re overdoing it. Your manager doesn’t value it. Your family thinks you’ve gone a bit sideways.
You believe you’re in the right place. The world disagrees.
That creates friction in your head? Also stress.
But here’s the thing, this low-grade stress is actually a side-effect of something we are going through.
The root cause isn’t new. That’s how humanity has evolved and honesty, achieved a lot.
But right now there’s a lot of noise (thanks for social media), exaggerated by the hussle and expectations of the modern life which pushes us to do too much sh*t all at once, causing us to not settle anywhere.
Even when you have achieved a lot in life, the goalpost keeps on moving.
You never feel or lookback with gratitude on what all you’ve achieved.
Because our brains are now trained to just keep on focussing onto the next thing.
Seven years ago I moved to the US with a suitcase and a ridiculous amount of hope. I told myself: if I’d survive a few years here and save few hundred thousand $$$, I’d feel great and head back home.
I have all of that now. Plus, a great family with sweet wife and two kids, a nice home and car - all material stuff I wanted.
Genuinely, more than I ever imagined.
And yet.
Some mornings I wake up anxious. Stressed about things I can’t even name.
Breakfast at office desk. Somewhere else in my head, planning the next move, wanting the next version of life.
Trying to be everywhere but the current moment in time.
We’re now wired like this, but we weren’t like that previously..
Initially I thought something’s wrong with me.
That I cannot control - control over my schedule, my outcomes, what other people think and that is the only way through.
Wrong.
You cannot control other people.
Cannot control most outcomes.
And the harder I grip, the worse it gets.
That’s a slow, quiet breakdown waiting to happen.
Something has to be given-up.
Letting go isn’t quitting. That’s the I missed.
I know it sounds like failure.
But it is not. It’s really liberating.
It means choosing what actually matters and releasing the rest. Focusing deeply on a few things instead of half-assing everything.
It also means accepting that you can be exactly in the right place, doing exactly the right thing and some people still won’t see it.
That’s their gap, not yours.
And it means slowing the sh** down.
Not as a productivity hack. Not as a life tip. Just literally. Slow. Down. Do less. Sit with something small.
Here’s how these thoughts occurred to me.
A medium cup of coffee. Made in my ninja coffee maker.
Usually too hot. Sometimes too bitter. Occasionally watered down.
But every morning without thinking, I walked through to my kitchen, stood in the same corner, made the same drink.
And somewhere along the way, the coffee stopped being coffee. It became a reason to get out of bed. A reason to believe something was waiting for me tomorrow.
One morning I sat alone by the glass, cup cooling between my hands, watching strangers pass by through my window, like they had somewhere important to be.
Nothing remarkable happened.
Just a quiet realisation.
Glad I’d made it to my reclining chair. This window. This completely mediocre cup of coffee.
That’s when I got it: it was never about the coffee.
The coffee hadn’t changed. The morning hadn’t changed. I had.
And for the first time in a while, the world felt like something I could actually hold.
If something as forgettable as a home-made coffee cup could make me glad to see through life and slow down, then maybe there are thousands of other reasons I just haven’t noticed yet.
The gap between where you are and where you want to be?
Sometimes it’s smaller than you think.
You’ve just been too busy to look.
— Gourav