OPEN LETTERS

An Open Letter to the Takeaway Coffee Cup

It’s time we had an honest conversation about your future

Dear Takeaway Coffee Cup,

There comes a point in anyone’s life when it’s time to deal with mortality. And we’re sorry to say, but you cannot avoid this moment of truth much longer.

While we will speak plainly, we also want to celebrate what you have become and what you mean to so many people. You have most certainly surprised us with your gifts.

Yours has been a life well-lived. But nonetheless, we cannot avoid the reality of what are you.

You are the proud child of Consumer Design and Needless-Product Marketing. And we know that — in not being the first child — you got lost in a large litter of other Needless-Consumer-Product Children that now vie for relevance in the eyes of your family and society. Much like your brother, Plastic Straw.

As we said, you did give us so much. You showed us humans that we have the ability to walk while drinking coffee. Before you, we thought we had to sit down.

We were able to get more done in our day. And we can consume more coffee than we used to because of how you encouraged your sister, Loyalty Card.

You have your weaknesses, like scalding people, leaking down the seam, and contributing to landfills. But we all have weaknesses. And we honor that you sought help from a coach, Sustainable Design.

But we’re sorry to say, Sustainable Design is also dealing with her own issues and sometimes cannot see things clearly.

Even if we transition to making you out of banana leaves or bamboo, our consumption rates just create more problems for you and for us. We really need to deal with the core issue, and this is where we have to take responsibility.

We too readily gave up our cultural practice of sitting across from each other and sharing in a moment. We were struggling with that, and frankly still do. So we filled up our lives with busyness so we, as humans, didn’t have to face each other.

You were simply a crutch we used to deal with our problem of co-existing. And we thought that if only we created another Needless-Consumer-Product Child, we would be okay.

It’s a sad and confronting truth, I know. And we’re sorry to deliver the news that you simply have no real future.

Yet this really shouldn’t surprise you. You must know that your father, Consumer Design, wanted to call you Disposable. It was only after intervention and insistence from your mother, Needless-Product Marketing, that Disposable was changed to Takeaway.

Sure, Takeaway is softer and more feminine. But your name also masks your true reality. Your impermanence is your beingness.

The death of Plastic Straw was needlessly drawn out and painful, but it didn’t have to be. Your Great-Great-Grandfather, Capitalist Thinking, reckoned the market would decide. But what a cruel punishment to put a Needless-Consumer-Product Child on life support.

In the end, Plastic Straw accepted euthanasia. There is dignity in controlling the end of one’s life. And frankly, without accepting his fate and submitting to reality, Plastic Straw would still be living his worst life. And, while it may sound dramatic, so would we.

So as you face your own mortality, I encourage you to celebrate what you gave us and surrender to your next chapter in the Great Landfill on the Other Side.

Or if you believe in reincarnation, hope that in your next life you will graduate to a higher purpose — one that brings people back together again.

With loving wishes, Planetary Future and My Personal Sanity