Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino
Why it’s much easier to know what type of coffee you want this morning than it is to know the type of life you wish to lead
“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall. Light, dark. Caf, decaf. Low fat, non-fat. etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they are doing or who on Earth they are can for only 2.95$, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self.
Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.”
— JOE FOX, You’ve got mail
The reason why it’s much easier to know the type of coffee you want tomorrow morning than it is to know the type of life you want to live is urgency. When something is urgent, you have to start doing it now and be done with it before a very specific deadline.
Think about it, when you wake up an hour after your alarm rang (must have snoozed the alarm in my sleep), feeling so groggy and tired, if you didn’t have a ‘very important’ meeting this morning, you aren’t even sure if you could make it on time. Miraculously though, you made it to the nearest Starbucks store, but just barely, ready for your daily dose.
You get inline, and your mind just keeps wandering and asking questions, questions you’ve been avoiding. What if I quit this job I fucking hate? What if I took a trip across Europe for a month? What if I start learning judo? What if I became a full-time lifeguard like I always wanted to? You check to see the time, and you only have 5 minutes before the meeting starts, with this looming reality, you shove these questions aside, once again.
Oh, why do I always fuck things up? You say to yourself. It’s finally your turn, “What can I get for you” and from the 80,000+ variations of coffee that Starbucks has to offer (almost 1 type of coffee for each second of the day I might add), it doesn’t take you a second to answer. With absolute certainty, you say, “Tall. Regular. Cappuccino, thank you.”
If you want to make something happen, I suggest you make it urgent. Give your goal a very specific deadline, and make the reward for achieving it and punishment for not, very obvious.
