Coffee Contemplation: Answers in the Questions
A reflection to prompt action.
Audio narration by David Marlow
Transcript:
David Marlow: For today's coffee contemplation, I am going to give you two things. Something to contemplate and a way to contemplate.
You'll often hear me say our answers are in our questions. Searching through some images a while back I came upon the picture above and my immediate thought was what a marvelous place that would be to sit down and ponder some questions.
Below is a series of reflection questions that I want to give to you to spark contemplation. Each of these builds upon the prior, so spend some time going deep with each one.
I always share lots of questions, because one idea will probably stand out and prompt a particular time of reflection for you. All of them may be great, but one of them is going to speak to you.
First, let's set the stage. Imagine you're sitting quietly by the creek in the picture, the only sound made by the water flowing past the rocks.
Take a moment to just imagine yourself in that situation. Next, take a moment to focus on your breathing, relaxing and centering on just being present.
🌀 Then, I want you to begin your reflection by considering these questions:
1. Who do I love, and what am I doing about it?
2. What have I always wanted to do and haven’t yet done?
3. On a day-to-day basis, am I doing the things that matter?
4. What am I doing to live life into my Ikigai with passion, health, and energy?
🌱 And now a bonus question.
Let's just pretend for a minute an oracle — okay, we're just pretending — so if an oracle could tell you what's going to happen three years from now, what would you most want to know?
That's your coffee contemplation.
Quest well
Thank you for reminding us gently how important it is to choose what we contemplate. While it’s important to care about the incidents happening within politics, if we don’t answer these questions in a daily basis for ourselves, then are we truly living?
“On a day-to-day basis, am I doing the things that matter?” - This is such a powerful question. I know a lot of people who understand what the “right” things are to do. And I know a lot of people who work hard EVERY DAY. I know very few people who know the right things to do AND do them every day. I struggle with this too. “Busy” is such a seductive state. It looks and feels like you are moving forward but often it just generated heat not light (tip of the cap to the engineer who introduced me to that phrase). Great questions to ponder over coffee.