It’s been a while since I wrote anything here but today was a pretty cool day. I went to lunch at one of my favorite places. It was late but the place was packed so I politely asked if I could sit at a tbale another guy was sitting at. He let me and we did what anyone in the modern day does. we sat there and looked at our phones. I was actually sending text messages to a new friend one that we just kinda “clicked” with each other right away and I had fresh in my mind being open to new experiences and conversations and all that other stuff, which is ironic given I was immersed in my phone.
I made a quip when he went to get his food. He made a counter quip when my name was called and I got mine.
Thta’s what started us talking. He asked what I did and I told him, and he then made a comment about the coffee berry borer and how he was in the coffee industry. I could feel some muscles tense even though it made no sense, there’s not much of an industry here on Oahu and he certainly did not look like someone that worked the fields. It turns out he was a barista.
I had the most interesting conversation about coffee and coffee pests in my career. We talked about the Starbucks effect, what makes a good cup of coffee. the importance of roasting versus brewing, what does and doesn’t affect the taste. It was a seriously good, random, just by chance conversation.
More importantly, it opened my eyes again on the importance of being open and being willing to lower the shields and stop looking at the phone because you never know who you might meet— and what you might learn in the process.
