The Coffee Parable

(I found this intriguing story on social media. See if it works for you.)

 

Let’s say it’s a beautiful day outside and you decide to go for a stroll. You pop by the local coffee shop to pick up your favorite brew. And as you turn around from the pickup counter, someone accidentally bumps into you and, as a result, half of your coffee ends up splashing all over the floor. The question I pose to you now is why did you spill the coffee?

 

The obvious answer that comes to mind for most people is the reason why you spilled your coffee is because that other guy bumped into you. If he didn’t bump into you, you wouldn’t have spilled your coffee. This is true.

Perhaps taking it one step further, the reason why you spilled your coffee is because you weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. If you had glanced over your shoulder before deciding to turn around, you may have been able to avoid that collision and thus saved your coffee. That might be true too.

 

But both of these are almost beyond the point if we were to consider the situation on a much more literal level.

 

Inside Out

The reason why you spilled your coffee is because your cup was full of coffee. If that cup was full of hot tea, you would have spilled hot tea. If the cup was filled with lemonade, you would have spilled your lemonade.

At the very core of it all, the thing that you spill is what was within you when you got shaken or jostled. The thing that comes spilling out is whatever was inside your cup when you got shaken or jostled. Getting bumped simply released what was already there. If you didn’t get bumped, nothing would have spilled, but in life, you can only expect to have your world shaken, jostled, and turned upside down every now and then.

 

Start at the Beginning

Now, this story isn’t really about coffee, of course. The point is that whatever is inside you is what will come out when you get shaken. If you are already filled with anger and resentment, that’s what will come out when things don’t quite go your way and you get bumped. If you are already filled with frustration, that’ll spill out ten times hotter when you get jostled.

 

Many people assume that they’ll be happy when they’re successful, but that’s putting the cart before the horse. It’s completely backwards. You must first start from a mindset of happiness and gratitude before you can really achieve any kind of real success. That way, when the world inevitably bumps into you, the thing that will come spilling out of your cup is happiness and gratitude.

The challenge, then, is figuring out how you can choose to fill your cup with positive vibes, humility, kindness, compassion and ambition, rather than resentment and frustration. It needs to be a conscious choice. So, start there. Fill your cup with joy, so when you do get shaken, all it means is you now have room for a refill.

 

Interesting? Right now we are all of us being shaken and jostled at 7.0 on the Richter scale. Rather than causing reactions, it is revealing what’s already inside of our cup. All the toxic narratives of the Patriarchy, White Supremacy, unchecked Capitalism that have been raging inside some cups are splashing out and burning anyone within reach. At the same time, our highest humanitarian impulses that have been waiting to be called on are overflowing in others. 

 

My work as a teacher is to help fill everyone’s cups with joy, connection, communion and great music and dance. And help re-fill them when the contents spill out. Well, not a perfect metaphor— the hot coffee of kindness still spills out so we can’t drink it and gets our clothes wet. But you get the point.