What’s your warm beverage of choice? Earl Grey is one of mine. I made some in a cute tea pot before I sat down to write.
When I looked in the cupboard, the matching tea cup was in the way back of a high shelf (the tall people I live with do this sometimes; they put things away out of my reach.)
So I grabbed the BEAMS Japan coffee mug on the lower shelf instead and got ready to pour the tea. The spout had almost touched the rim of the mug when I suddenly jerked my hand back.
I returned the mug to the cupboard. I got out a step ladder. I brought the cup I’d really wanted to the table, and let out a satisfied sigh.
“So close,” I thought to myself.
I almost let my pleasure not matter more than the extra (unwanted) step involved in the process.
I almost rationalized the choice to use the BEAMS mug (I was saving time and energy, it’s a gift from my son and I love it for drinking coffee, it’s super well-designed etc.)
And I almost repeated this familiar story:
“What I really want is out of reach so I should settle for what I can get.”
How about you? Do you hear that “out of reach” message in your head when you think about jobs, finances, relationships, creative dreams, your health or fitness goals like I do? Or even at the grocery store when an item is in the way back on a too-high or too-low shelf? Do you hold back and settle for less?
It’s so understandable if you do. And yet, our choices reinforce the story’s realness in a subtle but powerful way. “I should just settle” becomes a fact of life through our participation in it.
The good news is, if we’re the ones making the limitation real, we can make it unreal, too.
If “I extend my reach to get what I desire—even if I’m disappointed by the outcome sometimes” is what we’d rather tell ourselves, you and I can write that story.
We start where we are, by paying attention to the tiny wishes we hold back from fulfilling. And make new choices, one cup at a time.
