On the Everlasting Joy of an Unsolicited Chai Tea – A Review

Positive emotions like to give a good chase, don’t they?

It’s really easy to find sadness and even easier to find anger. But happiness? Pride? Serenity? Hope? They’re a bit more evasive and seem to, for me, be predicated within things I’m in less control of. Like outward affection, public acceptance, and validation.

I think that stems from (in the words of one of my professor’s) an unshakeable and corrosive self-doubt. One that follows me everywhere, like an untrained puppy. But see, I’ve always been able to manifest faith. Which is ironic in many ways. Faith is something I learned young and something I worked on a lot in college.

Trust is hard when its blind. And its even harder to have when you feel like you’re holding less of the cards or when you’re playing with someone else’s deck. But the beauty of that idea is that it works in reverse too.

Trust is easier when you’re the dealer.

I’m not a control freak, by any means. It’s my trust in others that let’s me give up the wheel. And its those exercises that make my trust more unshakeable than my doubts.

And I guess that’s where I find faith and that’s where I find my positive emotions.

Too often I get stalled in my head by recursive thoughts and over-analysis. And then I get stuck, living in there while my body goes on autonomously. My thoughts and mind will be locked in a moment that happened five seconds ago. Or five months ago. Or heck, even five years ago.

But I’m easily snapped out of it, and I forget that sometimes. A hand reaching out to pick me up puts trust under my feet, and knowing I’m not alone usually makes all the fog and recursion dissipate.

And then that freedom becomes my happiness. My pride. My faith.

I have a lot of faith in humankind. I see us as good. When that’s validated, I feel good.

That’s not healthy. But it’s where I’m at right now. I’m working on it, but I’ve been saying that for years.

Part of my joy comes from doing that for others. From being the one to reach out. From doing small things, like getting them a cup of coffee they never asked for. I don’t think about it, before I do it. I don’t go, oh it’d make me happy if I bought this colleague or friend dinner. I just do it, I guess. And then I’m satisfied that their day is a little bit brighter.

It feels materialistic, but. I know how great it feels to be considered. I know how great it feels to be thought of when I wasn’t in the room.

All the loneliness in the world goes away when you find an iced chai latte and a small note with your name on it on the kitchen table.

In that spontaneous consideration I find myself filled with love. Sharing that feeling is beautiful and powerful and shatters any frigidity in my often-iced core.

Those gestures to me, big or small, are the foundations of humanity. The ability to critically care and think big picture and do something at your own cost to someone’s benefit is laid in the human condition. But it can get buried. We can get jaded. We can become accustomed and create expectations. And we can also get lost in a sea of obligation. In pleasing. In the ulterior.

But in absolute innocence. In an act without desperation or intent at all. Giving is all that it takes to make the word a bit brighter.

Thanks for reading. Have a great Wednesday!