Vicky needs a coffee

I walked past a middle aged man gazing into a café the other day. I was right behind his back, when he suddenly turned around, and shouted „Vicky needs a coffee” right into my left ear. He was obviously talking to his friend on my right and didn’t see me coming.  The woman he was referring to inside the café, looked exhausted after what must have been long hours of sightseeing in the heat of the Budapest summer.

It’s been more than three months since I last posted something on this blog. I wish I could say that I’ve been busy writing my magnum opus all along, only I haven’t published any of it, but that would be a lie.

So I’m asking myself: what’s happened?

A few things. Summer for instance. I find it very hard to stay put and spend just one more minute indoors typing away after 8-10 hours of doing the same for work with an alternative of biking, running and jumping around outdoors. True, I could do my writing first thing in the morning, as I did only a couple of months ago, when I was experimenting with habits. And yet I don’t.

Also, I am not travelling anymore. When I was, writing came so naturally. I was in the business of going from one place to another and looking at people live. Now I’m trying to live myself – a lot harder, I find.

Perhaps, it’s all just as well. Maybe I should focus on living right now and write when I get older and can’t run up a hill anymore.

But writing isn’t the only area of my life that I have not made much progress in lately. So what the hell is going on with me?

Vicky did a lot of walking the other day so she felt entitled to have a break and a coffee. I’ve done a lot of work lately so I feel entitled to be less organized, less conscious of what’s important and to make less of an effort in general. Vicky needed a coffee, I need to slow down.

But the truth is, Vicky didn’t need a coffee. She wanted one.

What we we think we need, can be different from what we actually need. I may want to let myself go, but I don’t actually need to. What I do need to let go of is this mindset of entitlement I got into recently.

I need to acknowledge that the world doesn’t owe me anything. And when I do, I can go back to making the difference I want to make and that the world needs.