The month of April 2020, the WordPress Discover challenges have reopened. This week the Discover challenges are being handled by Krista Stevens. Her idea for today’s Discover post is the word, “Elixir.”
Elixir is a curious word, a word that means, as I understand it, potion. I suppose I have simple tastes, but my favourite elixir is tried-and-true Maxwell House coffee. When I was an adolescent, my godfather explained to me the significance of the Maxwell House slogan, “Good to the last drop.”
I don’t want to give away the story that accompanies the famed slogan, but if you know it, you understand why it can make someone brand-loyal, essentially, for life.
Later, in high school, I had a part-time job selling concession wares, and my duties included brewing coffee and cleaning the coffee maker when closing down. I surely did that routine a hundred times.
It was the early-morning shifts that got me to take the plunge and to begin drinking the odd cup of coffee. I associated it with being an elixir for grown-ups.
It was like second-nature for me to the extent that, in the years I did spend working fulltime, many a lunch break was spent in line at the coffee shop waiting to get my cup of brew. I had a couple of wonderful espressos and casual discussion about that, and truth told, I was never extremely cognizant at the time, and those days passed by before I perceived what had passed.
I wasn’t really happy working full-time. I was so distracted by what I perceived as “lack” that I feel looking back I missed some of the happiness that I was experiencing, only to notice sometime later in life, when I realized there were times of fulfillment that I wasn’t growing during, amid my preoccupation.
I wasn’t the only one who experienced such a thing. I can remember talking about it discreetly from time to time.
It may have been evident from my demeanour, or perhaps that is a common subject that people bring up when they are bonding. I am not sure to this day.
I can remember people reflecting similar. If I knew more about what was happening at that time, I might have fared better at the time I was grappling with concerns of that nature.
The difference between then and now is that, while I do a lot more of what I want to do for myself now in life, rather than back then when I was doing a lot more to fit in, at this time in my life I understand that I can be happy with a cup of coffee with milk in it, and not want a lot more than what a cup of coffee like that is.
I am more grateful for what I have that is simple but welcome. I am not sure I would be as grateful if I had never made sacrifices to earn what I wanted. I gained a clearer understanding of what I needed to be happier.
I imagine that is a normal part of the years going by, but I bet it doesn’t work like that for everyone. It was only with luck that I gained that realization, I infer. Again, I am not sure if that is true or not, or it is merely how I choose to interpret the life I’ve wound up leading, but I tend to think that being lucky contributed a great deal to things turning out as positive as they have.
I wouldn’t make the same decisions a second time, but I am grateful that I didn’t fare much worse in life, as far to these days as I have lived, with the understanding I do have that I got here, you might put it, on my own two feet.
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 