On pain of death (or, rather, pain of dirty looks from Ronni), I’m taking stock of my five wellness goals. I’m falling short on some: my afternoon coffee intake has risen, not dropped, and I’m meditating about half as often as I’d like. The coffee goal might be a bad one, though. While I don’t love the headache and sluggishness that comes with a caffeine deficiency, I find something perversely romantic about the whole ritual, about sharing this weakness with so many people.
The truth, though, is that my afternoon cups of coffee aren’t an elaborate social custom; it’s just me trudging solo to the office kitchen, barely appreciative of the coffee’s taste or powers. That’s not a habit worth keeping. The solution, I think, is to make the most of the (ideally) one cup I have in the morning: drink it slowly, in the company of others, and savor the lift it gives my senses.
One goal is going swimmingly: I’m playing soccer twice a week, and my anticipation of the Wednesday and Sunday games is reaching dumb-Pavlovian-slobbering levels, which, come to think of it, might be a problem itself.
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.