I’m here at Hunter Valley (Australia's 'Wine Country' and I’ve been awake since 6am this morning.
I greeted the day with a run, alongside the rising sun and as usual, the first thing I wanted after was a coffee.
I went home, showered and got my laptop ready dive into a flow-burst of work.
My sunrise view while on a run.
I went to the cafeteria/ bistro hall located on the same premises as my accommodation and there was not a single peep of movement for a good 20 minutes (but it’s okay, I sat there and just read my book).
Finally, some activity. I approached a lady who was wiping down tables, “may I place an order for coffee now?” Assuming the barista would be starting by this point, I expected her to say “yes.”
But instead, she said, “we just have the coffee machine at the back so you could make one there?”
I nodded politely and thanked her.
It turns out, barista coffee is a rarity in a town like this.
And after a quick Google search, I discovered there are only a handful of actual cafes with baristas… all of which don’t open until at least 8am here.
As this unfolded, I had the passing thought in my mind, “I only do what I do because of the environment I live in.”
It reminded me that I am a “city girl” for the most part. I wake up early, I dive headfirst into productivity, I move quickly and I crave a coffee first thing in the morning.
Being in a quiet town is quite the opposite. People live slower, there’s no reason to arise at the crack of dawn (unless you just like sunrises) and barista coffee is a novelty that not everybody view as ‘essential’ to the morning.
This experience reminded me that everything is relative. I’m only really experiencing life through my own lens. Everybody else experiences theirs through their own.
Realising this made me feel immense gratitude for the privilege of travel. Being in different places and witnessing the different ways of life, attitudes and beliefs of people reminds you that there’s no “one ultimate truth” (we will all have our own version of truth). But the only unchangeable truth is that life IS and we are here EXPERIENCING IT.
I read this morning in my book, ‘A New Earth’ by Eckhart Tolle;
“Considering the sunrise and sunset. When we say the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, that is true, but only relatively. In absolute terms, it is false.
Only from the limited perspective of an observer on or near the planet’s surface does the sun rise and set. If you were far out in space, you would see that the sun neither rises nor sets, but that it shines continuously.”
Isn’t that such a beautiful reminder of the perspective we need to take?
There’s no point getting caught up in details, labels and defending our truths. To try to remain attached to my ‘city girl’ routines or get hung up about the lack of good coffee available at 7am would just create suffering for me.
The attachment to anything is completely up to us. We decide our experience of this life.
Will you get hung up on what you think “should be” or will you embrace whatever your experience is whenever and wherever you are having it?
If you ask me, life gets a whole lot easier when you stop offering resistance to it and you just allow what will be to be.
Comments