Room for cream?

During my daily affairs I find myself consulting a few friends and associates about matters of life. They would call me their life-coach but that is not one of my official titles. Since I study, read, and write into this genre often it’s easy for me to share my advice about many subjects concerning daily living. One such topic I found myself sharing with several people was about leaving some room in their cup.

You coffee drinkers out there may have been asked by the attendant serving your freshly brewed cup of coffee; “Room for cream?” Rather than filling the cup all the way up to the brim they might ask if you want to leave room on top in order to add condiments to spruce up your coffee.

In that light I share my concept of dealing with many things that we allow to add unnecessary stress into our lives. As you may realize by now, life happens! When least expected certain things happen that throw us off our game. They seemingly come out of nowhere. Such is the nature of life.

Even though we might plan as much as possible for “what could happen,” inevitably things will happen that we didn’t plan for nor expect. Since they catch us with our guard down we are impacted more forcefully than if we were prepared. It is one thing to get hit hard when you are expecting to take a blow but another one when it catches you totally by surprise.

If someone hit you in your stomach while you were braced to receive the blow it would not impact you as badly as if you were hit with no advance warning. This is what life does to us occasionally. It hits us with things when we least expect them. Consequently, we are not prepared. For this very reason I suggest that you “leave room in your cup for BS. (I’ll let you define BS.)

Imagine that you are a cup with a certain capacity. Once your cup is filled to the brim nothing else can fit into it. That’s like the infamous straw that broke the camel’s back. Just one more thing happening to you when your cup is full could throw you completely out of whack. On the other hand if you consciously left a bit of room at the top for the unexpected (BS) it would be like bracing up when you knew someone was going to hit you in your stomach.

In a sense I expect the unexpected to happen in life. When it does I have room in my cup to receive it. I leave x-amount in my capacity for BS so when it inevitably happens I just shuck it off instead of getting all bent out of shape. This is a conscious daily practice.

When people do unexpected things or act in ways that are contrary to my ideal they no longer throw me completely off my game. When something I hoped for does not materialize as I had hoped I am no longer as devastated. Even though I keep a positive mental attitude in general, I try to leave enough room for the unexpected.

We are not superior to life. We are merely having our being inside this game of life. Expecting the unexpected, the unplanned and unwanted, leaves room in your cup.

Although we may hope that our incoming match our outpouring… that is not always the case with life. When things don’t happen according to our expectations we are free to let it go and move forward. By leaving room in our cup for the unexpected it is much easier to let go, forgive, or just press ahead with a positive mental attitude. Some refer to this as “Letting go and letting God.”

Try this practice as conscious awareness. Teach yourself to expect the unexpected. Keep enough head-room in your cup so some of those small things do not become really, really huge things. Be at peace with yourself so you can be at peace with the world around you. Constantly do things that take the edge off the top in order that you may have the extra head-space.

Leave room for cream. Leave some room for the inevitable BS that life tosses your way. If you do this you might become a much more peaceful person. In doing so the world will usually reflect back what it senses coming from you. Leave room in your cup for cream.