Failure or conscious capitulation on coffee choice?

Sometimes I am not exactly sure why I do the things I do. And then I find myself in the middle of doing the thing, asking myself “Why the hell am I doing this thing?”

In all honesty, that probably describes most of my life.

So it came to no surprise when, at three o’clock in the morning on a Saturday night, I found myself 15 hours into a mountain bike race struggling to remember how I had gotten there. I was questioning just about everything else too.

“Why do I even own a bike? How can I call these people my friends if they let me do these things? Is this my purpose in life? To ride in circles and live on fruit leather?”

In the middle of the night, with hours of riding ahead of me, what I came to question most of all was my commitment to giving up caffeine. It made no sense, no sense at all to not drink coffee anymore. Why had I picked a year? I could just say six months. I am a grown up after all. I can do whatever I want.

If we are in charge of our own decisions as adults, why ever do we take on challenges or deprive ourselves of the things we love? Somewhere in some poetry by Lao Tzu, we are baited with the idea of enlightenment or nirvana await, achieved only by our unattachment to the things we have and the things we do.

I pedaled harder and thought, “Perhaps I am pedaling to spiritual awakening.” Mostly I felt like I was pedaling myself to a 14-hour nap in the near future.

Even with all that time to spend spinning in my head and coming up with an answer that made logical sense, I could not find any reason to continue my deprivation.

I rolled into camp and called my people to my side. “People,” I said, “Make me some coffee.”

A hush came over the camp, followed by a moment of hesitation. Someone said we forgot the decaf. Then someone whispered, “No, she means the real thing.”

Now I have had a great many moments of joy in my life. Each one of them has been a blessing, the sweet nectar of the fruit of our labors. I recall sunsets that brought me to tears, looking into my daughter’s eyes for the first time, summiting peaks in the Himalayas.

And that first sip of coffee. How it poured warm and earthy into my belly. Glorious, dark, delicately roasted, serum of life, coffee. With caffeine. Whatever purpose I was seeking, it had now been found. Coffee, I am sure, brings meaning to all things.

Back on the bike, the colors were brighter and the birds singing louder. It may have been the fact that dawn was coming, but I am pretty sure that coffee actually made the sun rise.

I drank another cup a few hours later. It was nearly as glorious. Then the race ended, along with it the 24 hours of suffering. Coffee lost its meaning and I started asking myself why I had given up alcohol in the first place.

I had a glass of wine with dinner that night. It, too, was a joyful reunion. I wondered if I had just thrown in the towel on my commitment, if I’d be knee-deep in a vat of tequila by dawn. It sounded like a good idea.

Instead I went to bed and when I woke up, I drank decaf. The joy of the coffee was not found in having it every day. It is found in being fully present in that unique experience of it.

That goes for so many things in life and it is why we keep finding ourselves in the middle of the thing asking why and how we got there. To experience it fully. And it is in that place we find enlightenment.

It is no surprise that I find mine in coffee. Take a moment to discover where you find yours.

Ammi Midstokke is committed to completing her year without coffee, alcohol, or sugar and considers this single event as a pause for consideration. The benefits still outweigh the immediate gratification of a margarita. Barely.