Had a lovely conversation learning about a journey of a talented, smart, driven woman confronted by a series of personal and health challenges along her life. She has confronted cancer, a divorce, interpersonal relationships, among other trials and tribulations. Her life journey has led her to finding a path of purpose to help others as a life coaching while balancing a full-time and demanding job.
Did she mean to share any of those aspects of her life with me? Maybe. I don’t know. This was only the second time (third time if we count a brief interaction we had outside a YMCA months back, just at the start of the pandemic) we had ever met and, somehow, the flood opened and she begun sharing with me different aspects of her life journey.
It doesn’t always happen nor do I expect that to be the norm but I am grateful and honored when people give me the trust to be a recipient of their story.
The Takeaway: Sometimes in life we need to talk and be listened to when we least expect it. Take a break from the hamster wheel and connect with a friend, a stranger, a new acquaintance and see where the conversation takes you. Perhaps you will do the honor of listening or, to your surprise, the river of your life will come out demanding to be shared, engaging and gifting the other person with a new found knowledge and understanding of yourself.
As I have opened this project to meet people outside of my network, the question of motivation and intention keeps coming up for me.
What are the intentions and motivations of the people I meet? Are my own intentions and motivations clear to the people I meet?
Those are questions that have become even more pronounced as I meet people through Bumble Bizz, and as a result of Coffee with John profile on the Ballantyne Magazine .
Bumble Bizz is full of consultants, real estate agents, financial advisors, “influencers,” and folks looking to sell, acquire investors, or build their careers somehow, not to mention the men and women looking for something beyond a business connection. The intentions and/or motivations of the strangers reaching out to me directly because of the article are not as obvious.
Perhaps they, like me, just want to make a connection. I don’t know. By nature, I am skeptical, and — as a person who grew up in NYC — my guard is up most of the time. So I know I am asking a lot with the premise of this project. Yet, even for myself, I can’t help my nature and go back to the questions of intentions and motivations.
I can’t say I have had anyone tried to sell, convince, or rope me into anything. Nor have I had any negative experiences with people trying to cross any boundaries. What I have experienced is a desire to share with me a particular narrative to influence what I might end up writing as my takeaway. That might be driven by the human desire to share, influence, or perhaps a public misgiving/misconception of what Coffee with John is all about.
I never know what I will end up writing. Nor do I know what will influence my takeaway. It might be the conversation or it could be the vibe of the meeting. Coffee with John #81 reaffirmed for me my intentions and motivations.
My intention is connecting, sharing a moment, and, if it leads to, cultivating friendships and welcoming new people into my social circle. The motivation comes from a place of healing, grieving and dealing with the cards life has given me.
From the start, people have asked me if I mix dating with this project. The short answer is no. That has been clear for me from the start, wanting to keep those set of boundaries and worlds separate.
This does not mean I haven’t had Coffee with John meet-ups with people I have or are currently dating. But, those connections came independently of this project. Ultimately, I want CWJ to be a safe space for me and the people I meet.
The takeaway for Coffee with John #81 is that I will continue to trust my intuition as I meet new people without worrying about their motives or intentions. In the end, I trust.
A season of wind chimes. The wind making its way through them, creating music, movement, and ripple effects on each imaginary chime highlighting a season – a happy, brief, beautiful season of romantic entanglement. The impact reverberates still with residuals of the wind occasionally swishing the inner chimes of space.
People come into our lives, enhancing and redirecting our lives to new roads and journeys. Their passing through our lives, like the wind, moves us to new directions, ventures, and destinations. Their influence – as well as ours on them- perhaps will never be fully known to either. Meditation, new books, different perspectives in life, and hobbies adapted into my life have all been shaped by different seasons of entanglements.
The space and length of time shared with a person might not matter. It could be years, months, weeks, or minutes shared in the crossing of paths but, in the end, the interactions leave a mark. Ultimately, the decision of how a person affects you is up to you. Not denying the love, hurt, or other strong emotions that a person can elicit. Still, their season in your life, if ended or just at the start, can provide you with invaluable lessons about yourself, marking new paths for your development and happiness.
As I rushed out from Coffee with John #80 following a new path brought upon by past interactions and outcomes of a season(s) long gone, I wondered what other lessons I have yet to experience and mysteries to uncover by unexpected/surprising encounters with people from my past and those I have yet to meet.
Last week or so, through Bumble Bizz, I had a virtual CWJ with a young man from Ninety Six (yes, 96!), a town in Greenwood County, South Carolina with a population of roughly 2,000 people. That hour long conversation inspired the following write-up:
As part of rituals, war, ceremonies, religious traditions, or disguises, masks have formed part of society since ancient times.
More than ever, masks are ubiquitous and part of our daily wardrobe.
No matter if you are donning an actual mask or not, we all wear an invisible mask, projecting into the world a persona. Behind that invisible mask, the insecurities, emotional scars, fears, and the many qualities and idiosyncrasies that make us, us.
We hide behind our masks, often not letting people see our true selves to our own detriment. The persona we put out sometimes actually conceals our bravery, confidence, and humanity – all the attributes we all want to project.
The takeaway: we can best serve ourselves by putting away the mask/persona we project into the world to let our true selves soar. We can learn from embracing our vulnerability, self-doubts, and go for what we want despite all that can hold us back.
Do places hold positive/negative energy? Do certain spots possess magical qualities affecting our moods?
I have certainly experienced the energy flow of certain places. Two recent places come to mind. The first, Tayrona National Park, in northern Colombia. The other, Latta Nature Center and Preserve. I am not going to tell you what I experienced but I definitely felt the vibrations of those places.
In this last round, as we were wrapping up, my coffee mate invited me to sit at a trunk/bench located in Freedom Park to see if I felt the energy of this magical spot for her.
That experience brings me to my takeaway: no matter how much you might try, you will never be able to experience or understand a person’s perspective or how they see and experience the world around them.
The question is how much are you willing to lean on trying to understand their viewpoint without a desire to change their minds or impose your own experience on them?
Some issues, circumstances, situations are easy to let go of your perspective and jump into the viewpoint of the other person. Other issues, well, not so easy to lean on, especially these days.
Hatred, racism, violence, bigotry, and arrogance are issues I have no room to lean on. Nor could I try to understand those driven by those forces. Still, for the most part, we do a disservice when we close ourselves without at least hearing and putting ourselves in the shoes of those we love and within our community.
I know I have, as of recent, been guilty of imposing my own feelings and perspectives when I should have spoken less and just sat and reflected for a moment where the other person was at the time with their feelings and emotions.
Perhaps, if we try to lean on and see the world as others see – without judgment and with more empathy – we can at least come to new understandings about ourselves while providing the space for others to be heard and be seen.
After running around and almost not making it, I am glad I had the chance to connect with coffee mate #76, a connection from Virginia via Bumble Bizz.
Seems like the meeting happened ages ago. What is clear is how grateful I am to be able to connect with strangers and share a moment.
It’s intriguing to delve into conservation without any preconceived notions, intentions, or agenda, letting the flow of the dialogue take you in different directions leading to newfound knowledge. Like, do you know about Victoria Falls in Zambia? Or about the Stratosphere drop in Vegas? Or about endometriosis?
I didn’t know about any of those things, bringing me to my takeaway: we go around thinking we know stuff but in reality, we are only scratching the surface. The world is full of stories, universes, and knowledge we have yet to grasp, experience, and taste.
During our conversation, we talked about two column lists. On one side, the column of things to accomplish and experience in this lifetime. The other, the column of accomplished adventures/experiences/activities. I can add to that second column new things learned born out of a conversation with strangers — the list is long.
What would you like to add to your second column?
PS: If you want to learn more about endometriosis, I encourage you to follow on Instagram the story of Manda
PSS: No. This is not Victoria Falls but it is a picture from that same day when I had CWJ #76. So it seems fitting to include it:
Coffee with John #75 represents the half-way point to meeting my goal of the number of people I want to meet for CWJ.
Two years since I began this project. Half-way point towards an end, new beginnings, new adventures.
It has taken me two years to arrive at this milestone. From the start, I have had in mind 150 individual meetings with different people each time. Why this number? 150 is known as Dunbar’s number. Based on his theory, we can only maintain about 150 connections at once. I read about Dunbar’s theory around the time Facebook was becoming widespread; the concept has stuck with me.  Â
I am in no rush to meet my goal. If I meet the goal in the next month, a year, or the next, I am fine with it. The people I have met along the journey have come into my life at the appropriate time.
Coffee-mate for CWJ #75 is a prime example. I could have not, even if I wanted to, chosen this bold, bright, bodacious, beauteous woman to be the perfect candidate to reach my half-way point.
The many reasons for this abound. In addition to being part of my water season, the other main reason actually brings me to my takeaway: how many lives have you lived in your lifetime?
Where are you in your seasons of life? Half-way point? At the beginning? At the end of an old one? Would you even know where you are? How many versions have you reincarnated, knowingly and consciously? Are you living a different life than you were a few years back? Are you ready to take on a new life? How different are you from the person you were 3, 10 years ago. Would you recognize your past self?
As a widower, single parent, and an empty nester, I am living a whole new life, different from three or four years ago, or even just a year ago. I have experienced new adventures, met new people, traveled (when that was a thing), and expanded my horizons, adopting along the way new habits like meditating and listening to podcasts – did you know podcasts are a thing?
Life circumstances direct or redirect our life paths, giving us no choice but to adapt to new realities imposed by forces beyond our control. Like now, we are all living a new reality, bringing a season of uncertainty and shadows into our lives. Still, other times, we have a saying in the direction where we have free choice in taking that first step into our new lives. We take action and create our own new reality. We have the power to reinvent ourselves.
I might be half-way point into meeting my goal for this project, but in many ways, I am just at the beginning. I don’t know where it will lead me and that excites me. And so in life. I don’t know where I will be in a year or two. But I am excited about the possibilities. I am in a new version of my life, not the one I had chosen but one I am embracing full-on.
Inspired by the conversation, what follows is what
CWJ #74 brought about:
Disrupt
create
construct
canalize
deconstruct
alchemize
mistrust
Intellectualize
Who are you?
How do you see the world?
How does the world see you?
Erupt
rationale applies
Entrust
self-analyze
Defunct
crystallize
exult
Man arrives
Perceptions come - discover new ones
Conclusions go - question the directions
World views erupt - keep grounded
#9
#4
So much I can say about this dear friend. We have known each other for almost two decades or more. Our friendship is uncomplicated. I hold her friendship dear to my heart. I am grateful to have her as a light in this journey of life.
We have shared many conversations and secrets. Our coffee together this time around did not shatter any new grounds or reveal anything new — two old friends talking with each other amidst a world gone topsy-turvy.
What made the occasion ultra special is the time we set up to talk. As a mother, wife, full-time architect, and the many other hands she wears, for her taking the time to talk with me represented an ordeal. Habits, routines, day-to-day activities, had to be disrupted.
The takeaway: what habits/routines are you willing to break to dedicate to something you want to do but it’s not part of your regular day-to-day?
We get in this hamster wheel, ignoring friendships, the desire to workout, the goals of pursuing that one thing that you have meaning to do but never seem to have the time for.
We become engrossed in our habits and roles -working, parenting, exercising, practicing YXZ, or just doing our thing – that we ignore or stop pursuing other interests because we feel we must do what we are already doing.Â
But, must we really do what we do all the time? All of those habits/routines will be waiting for us. Stop. Take stock, break the routine, do something out of the ordinary. That could be waking up an hour earlier to spend an hour chatting with an old friend.
Of the few, if not the only, picture we have together.
Building on my momentum, Coffee with John # 71 represented my third time meeting with a complete stranger. This time I met them through a private neighborhood FB group.
I had posted about my CWJ project and asked if anyone wanted to meet up. Two brave souls who were willing to participate reached out. The first, I met virtually. The second brave soul I met face-to-face at a local cafe with us being the only patrons sitting down. Â
We shared a lovely conversation about life and part of our history. It was an uplifting discussion, leaving me light and energized. Â
In discussing the experience the next day with a friend, the question that came up was what prompts or drives strangers to meet up with me. I am not offering to buy, sell, date, or anything. And, in most cases, people buy their own coffee. All I am offering is the chance to meet and have a conversation.
With that question in mind, I reached out to coffee mate #71 and asked her what had motivated her to meet me.
Her answer inspired my takeaway: we need to challenge ourselves and explore life out of the bubble we surround ourselves with.Â
What have you done today that challenges and takes you out of your comfort zone? It can be as simple as talking to a stranger.
PS: I don’t have a picture from the meeting but I do have this picture from that day.
Coffee With John 