The Hidden Life of Things

Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea

The Cup who Wanted to be Everyone’s Favorite

Sara was awake and ready at 5 AM as usual. She was ready to do the impossible to taste her best that morning.

That morning like every morning she would open her eyes and convince herself it was the day when she would become everyone’s favorite.

Sara was a cup of tea — one of those unfortunate, not-everyone’s-cups of tea who always caused confusion, objection, or open dislike. Whatever she did — be it changing her humidity, viscidity, acidity, avidity, sapidity, or/and her placidity — it was a futile attempt to satisfy all of them.

There was always someone who would complain about her general validity and the level of delight they ultimately wouldn’t gain by interacting with her. If she did amplify her sweetness, then they complained the tea wasn’t aromatic enough. When she did intensify her aroma, they would lament the tea was lacking in flavor. She never seemed to succeed in predicting the right variable to tweak. As much as she exerted herself to achieve perfection she did not once guess the winning combination right.

Sara was getting desperate. She was losing her enthusiasm. And it is a known truth among the cups of tea and the humans alike that when you lose your enthusiasm, you’re losing your flavor as well. She realized the vicious circle she put herself into. The more despondent she became about the fact she wouldn’t please everybody, the more her chances to properly please anybody evaporated like her very own veneer of confidence! She ought to break the wicked emotional trigger system which brought her only frustration and offered no dignified way to accept her failure.

Sara was sitting on the kitchen countertop, lit by the morning sun. A cold droplet of again rejected tea was running down her side. Her mirror-like surface rippled by a single lemon-flavored reflection promising her a glorious success.

So what did Sara do next?

Well, technically she did nothing. She did exactly zero changes to her humidity, viscidity, acidity, avidity, sapidity, and her placidity for three straight weeks! She set her physical properties to arbitrary values thus giving herself a specific flavor, scent, warmth, and hue. Through some mental effort, she even talked herself into believing this combination was *her true* face hence managed to find a bit of comfort in being *her true self*.

*her true self* suddenly became a favorite fixture in the lives of those same every-bodies whose main purpose appeared to be a display of rude dissatisfaction before. Now everyone praised Sara for her consistency and resolve. She was finally everyone’s favorite.

And Sara hated every sipping minute of it!