Tea in The Sahara

Am I lost? Or was I ever on the right path, anyway? Is there a happy happy joy joy reality in another dimension that I have just missed? What am I really going to do when I grow up?

To find one’s passion in life, and then to follow it is a scary business.

More scary, though, than the thought of not finding the right career path for me is a thought of not even trying to find it. Someone has said that too many people burn out without ever having been on fire.

And a fear of risking a failure just keeps too many souls and bodies burning out.

Being scared probably means you have some inklings as to what you, in the heart of hearts, dream about doing, and that there is personal meaning involved in that dream – and that you’re not doing what you’d really like. Not yet. So shake hands with the fear. You might just as well learn to like it. Fear is the friendly, warm shadow of passion.

The whats and the whys and the hows of passion is one of my big time favourites, as I am one of those personality types who gets fueled by inspiration and excitement – whether it’s my own or someone else’s. Why does someone do what they do. How have they found their passion. How are they serving other people by following their passion. How are they re-igniting their passion in the nitty-gritty of everyday life. So being a journalist is a pretty fitting career choice for satisfying all this curiosity concerning passion.

But lately, there’s also this small ‘but’ lingering in the background. I have this bugging feeling that somewhere in the midst of all the road network I know so far is another career path waiting for me. I haven’t got too clear directions and I’m not even sure whether that path exists already or if it’s one of those ‘u-tread’ ones.

So I have figured out I’d better turn this bugging feeling into one of my best friends who I’m ready to travel to scary and amazing places with and quarrel and cry and party and make jokes with.

So far, we’re in okay terms and have on an idea level explored a few nice locations, but I’d say we could do much better and actually head out to the real world.

Both of us are good at coming up with excuses for why we shouldn’t depart to that longer journey. Not just yet. I’ll just finish this one thing I’m working on first, maybe after that. Nah, not today, it’s too dark. Not now, it might rain. Not today, I’m busy watching my hair turn grey.

But writing it on this screen now makes the pursuit for passion more real.

There. I’ve said it. Let’s go and open the door and head out even despite the rain and the unfinished business elsewhere. Well, okay. You can take the umbrella with you, though.

It wasn’t suppose to go like this. I do writing for living so how come I have written only one text here this year? The ‘interweb’ is, amongst a few other things, a graveyard for once-upon-a-time started blogs and personal and business websites with ancient promises that cheerfully convince that new material is on its way as we speak. I’m not too proud to join that club…

Life happened. Lots of other things got written. This blog has hovered in the backstage, wondering why something switched the lights off and left the building completely. But something has been brewing. So enough of feeble explanations. Let’s dive back.

When I think of sustainability (for both the planet and a single soul), consumerism and good life, I think of tea.

The time and place of this scribbling is only suitable, as I’m writing this in a hotel room in London, overlooking rainy Kensington Gardens, with a mug of strong black tea. I used to live in England for three years and in England I learnt what good tea is.

For someone like me whose life story largely consists of looking for solitude, meditating, existing for and through words and gazing inward into their own worlds in probably a half autistic way, tea is a number one drink.

And just as well, for someone like me who loves to meet new people, travel, loiter around in cafés and get sensual presents for friends and family from overseas, tea is a number one drink.

For anyone whose is seeking a good way to swap an everyday consumer product to a fair trade and/or and organic one, tea is perfect. More and more businesses have already done. Stories are a great way to infuse this into thirsty creatures. I absolutely love the story of Mr. Scruff, whose tea is one of the best I have found.

It was also here in the U.K. where I got introduced to Mr. Scruff.

It was earlier this year, on a stop from a small village called Callander in Scotland Highlands. Mr. Scruff was smiling at me with his wide mouth full of milky white teeth, and with a fully well thought package of a fair trade, organic, great tasting brew I was all his. Mr. Scruff is one those creatures you are so happy to meet that you want to share them with the whole world. You can get introduced to Mr. Scruff here: http://www.makeusabrew.com/

In the list of his requirement for a perfect brew that everyone would love, Mr Scruff wished that the tea ‘must go well with a pie’, which really did it for me, despite the fact that I hardly ever have any pie with tea. But it meant that Mr. Scruff is a man of great details. And I love details. In writing, in life, in boxes of tea.

Why this blog? Let’s here it from someone wise:

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” - Woody Allen

This brings me both to tears and stitches. I have to admit the spot on the crossroads that W. Allen describes comes embarrassingly close to what I secretly think.

But, thankfully, we people are full of paradoxes. Even with the underlying pessimism, I think there is no other way than act with the full belief there is a way to keep this planet of ours livable.

In fact, I think it’s a bit of an obligation, too, as in ‘Have fun in this cottage you have rented for a weekend, but please clean up afterwards so that the next ones coming after you can have their fun, too’. So, how to do that – keep this shared cottage of ours in good shape while enjoying our time here? I want to find out.

I’m interested in sustainable living both in the personal, every-day dimension and on the business level. Thanks to social media, increased quest for transparency, companies wanting to enhance their public image and growing awareness of the deteriorating carrying capacity of Earth, corporate responsibility is climbing higher on the agendas of businesses.

Working on that triple bottom line – regarding people, planet and profit, instead of just looking at the good old turnover – may not always be a leisurely walk in the park. Let’s see what it entails and what it can be at its best.

As a journalist, I have for several years written on working life related issues such as well-being at work, change management and immigration policies in the Finnish labour market. Now, I want to broaden the focus to financial and environmental doings. – And at the same time take a look at how my own soul is coping, while this tea-drinker is trying to lead a sustainable life.

So, onwards from the Woody’s crossroads, eh?