People say comparison is the killer of joy, but I say it goes even further. The longer you compare, the further you go from seeing who you truly are.

Last week I had a roller coaster week at work.

I’m a barista, at the busiest Starbucks in Williamsburg.

An especially busy day there is enough to threaten the most upstanding person’s sanity.

So last week started off as a pretty great week at work.

My shifts were just right.

Short enough to leave me with enough energy to walk and pee, and long enough to keep me from thinking

“why do I even pay the gas to drive here?”

I was getting along with everyone I worked with, and my frapp and machiatto making was going smoothly.

Then it was Thursday.

Let me start by saying Thursday was going to be the epitome of my already good week.

My friend, whom I hadn’t seen in months, was coming to visit me.

Usually by Thursday I’ve had enough entitled customers yell at me to have to pray myself into work..

But this week was different, it was going good, and it was going to get better.

Until…

I went to bed wednesday with a slight twinge of nausea in my stomach.

You know the feeling.

“What is this pain in my abdomen?!”

…the self-investigation begins.

You lay in bed going through each chicken tender, juice box, and glass of wine you may have ingested throughout that day

sure to red flag anything new you ate that day

But as I lay there, I thought of nothing that would have made me feel sickly, so I forced my eyes shut and promised my worried mind I would wake up feeling healthy.

I didn’t wake up in the morning…

I woke up an hour later POSITIVE that the inner lining of my stomach must be eroding.

(I had a fever, and everything is more dramatic when you have a fever)

Immediately I considered what this meant,

-no visit from my friend

-calling out from work

-disappointing my boss

-pissing off my co-workers

So I thought of the perfect solution, I must need to vomit.

I called upon the powers of the porcelain bowl. Surely the expired milk or undercooked turkey leg (that destroyed my plans for today) would leave my body, and return my plans to normal.

But it didn’t work.

I went back to bed, forehead a blazin, and stomach a-clinchin’.

When I texted my boss to let him know what evil, plan-destroying sickness had assailed me, I was told I needed to either

A) find someone to cover me or B) come in anyway.

This may make you think my boss is an ass, but I can assure you he isn’t.

Without making excuses, I can simply inform you that he gets texts and calls like these on the daily.

There is virtually no way for him to know who is honest, and who is skipping town to go sun bathing.

Not only that, but being short handed at my work, the blessed coffee supplier of Williamsburg, is like going paddle boarding without the board… it isn’t good.

So, back to the story..

I went into work, fever and all, and ended up having to leave after an hour.

I was so miserable that i’m pretty sure I was calling Chai Tea Latte’s “Chai tea sluttys”, crossed eyed and sweating.

Thankfully, my boss had mercy, and I went home early.

When I got home I walked the steps to the coach that would hold me for the next day and a half.

I let my friend know that visiting wasn’t a possibility,

and I slept… and I slept… and I slept.

I was quarantined from my family, and left to wallow in my “plans-suddenly-ruined” misery.

Needless to say, my week was no longer good.

It doesn’t take much to ruin a day.

You could win the lottery, but if your dog dies and your lover leaves you it doesn’t feel nearly as great.

Life is like that…

One second it’s great, and suddenly the roller coaster drops and your back at the ground with nothing left but the memory of the thrill.

I feel like i’m constantly chasing that thrill.

It’s a desperate, endless, and at times hopeless, chase.

I have it one day, and life feel’s great!

But my life seems to be in cycles, and I just can’t hold onto the good days.

We are all well aware that life has up’s and down’s, i’m sure of that…

but are you also aware of what you’re doing to maintain the good days, and avoid the bad?

Let me explain.

There are quite a few things that I rely on.

caffeine is one of them.

I rely on caffeine to have a bubbly personality, lack of headaches, and also to avoid murdering the customers who truly test me.

I also rely on sleep.

However, my caffeine dependency often coincides with my desire for sleep, and soon i’m relying on sleep aids.

Then there are the more serious things, like my appearance.

My hair, my skin, my wardrobe, and my body.

Check after check is invested in this addiction…

the pills and creams that give me clear skin,

the gift cards and dollars that help me keep up with the latest trends,

and the shaun-t beachbody workout routine that keeps my body tight and lean.

I work hard to maintain the addictions that keep “bad days” at bay.

I hold onto my image so that i’ll be liked, wanted, and happy.

I hold onto my espresso, my wine, the tools that keep me bubbly and relaxed when otherwise I would be tired, or up tight.

Like an alcoholic, I often

-convince myself that relying on these things isn’t such a bad thing

-live in fear of it being taken away, and

 -sacrifice other things that would otherwise threaten my addiction.

But relying on things that are so quick to fade is a scary thing.

Like a drug you need more, your never quite satisfied with a healthy amount of “these things”.

But lets say your some inhuman off-breed, and you can’t relate to being reliant on anything…

Then tell me this, what about the aspect of life that is beyond your control?

Can you control when your family dies? When your money is stolen?

When the government is corrupted and your comfort and safety is taken?

No.

Can you pretend that the bad doesn’t bother you?

Yes.

Push away the pain and keep on strollin’

Can you isolate yourself, when bad times come knockin’ you start runnin?

Yes.

Go to and island and pretend everything is ok.

But whether you admit it or not, this life isn’t ever going to be fully what it should be.

Perfect, or even good persistently.

Life is in cycles, there is good, but you better believe there is bad as well.

Furthermore,

Lets forget about the out of control things, like government and weather…

Think about yourself, how do you measure up? How high is your confidence?

Is it like the other things i’ve talked about, good some day’s, bad on others?

One more story…

On the busiest day i’ve ever had at work, I was working food prep.

As latte’s and pastries are purchased, a sticker is printed, and the food is prepared in the order they were placed.

As I sprinted from the oven to the customers, calling out each sandwich and muffin,

I was halted by a fiery eyed woman.

Her brows clinched together and her voice raised a few octaves. She belted out how irritated she was that she hadn’t yet received the food that she ordered.

At the risk of this blog being entirely to long, I won’t go into detail of everything she said

(and the ridiculousness of her irritation when put into perspective)

I will tell you that by the end of her rant, she said something that threw me over the edge…

As my shift-manager calmly insisted that we would hurry up and make her sandwich, the lady says

“NO! We are going to be LATE FOR CHURCH!”

ahhh, the reason for her madness.

She couldn’t patiently wait for her sandwich, she needed to go sit in a pew and LEARN about patience.

She couldn’t possibly have mercy on the exhausted, short staffed workers, because she had to go learn about the significance of love, and the filth of hatred!

This must have thrown me over the edge directly into madness, because as I returned to work

(clinching my fists and feeling dejected)

…I started to laugh…

I realized something that I know quite a few people will surely disagree with.

This woman’s bitterness, selfishness, and cruelty, had made me feel better about my own selfishness, cruelty, and bitterness.

Let me explain…

As my perception of this woman lowered, my view of myself was heightened.

“Surely I am not that disgusting”

“I would never…”

“No… i’m not perfect, but I don’t act that way!!!”

But wait…

What about when I spend more money on make-up, than I do on the poor family living in the town I pass through each and every day?

What about when someone asks for me to cover their shift, and I roll my eyes and think of my plans.. even though I know what it’s like to need help when your sick.

You may think your good, but do you think that because of how you compare?

People say comparison is the killer of joy, but I say it goes even further…

The longer you compare, the further you go from seeing who you truly are.

If I haven’t lost most of you already, i’m sure that in the next few lines I will.

You may not like the Bible, but allow me to use it as a quick example.

Jesus, to which most of us are familiar, preached a really famous sermon

(which you may or may not have heard)

called the sermon on the mount.

In this sermon, Jesus lays down the law.

Let me paraphrase some of what he said.

“You think you’re good because you don’t murder?? Well did you know that even when you hate someone, you’re murdering.

You think you’re all set, because you don’t sleep around on your wife?

Well let me tell you something, when you look at the back side of that girl in the dress, and you (even for a second) lust… you’re committing adultery”

catch that? take a minute…

When I hated that mean woman at work, it was just as much a “sin” as murdering.

Please stay with me ….

Most people who read that have 1 or 2 reactions…

they think: “oh boy oh boy, gotta tighten the reigns… Gotta be good, GOTTA BE BETTER!!”

They think the Bible, and Jesus’s sermon, is telling them the list of rules that will give them good standing and get them into heaven.

It’s like their driving a car, and jesus sits in the back shouting directions.

Or they think, “screw that! NOBODY is that perfect! I could never measure up”

Usually they end up hating Jesus, the bible, “religion”, etc.

Who could blame them?

But I want to suggest their rejecting a false idea of who Jesus is, and what He is saying.

I’m confident in this, because that is exactly what I was doing.

Jesus isn’t like the Christians or the perception of the bible that you’re most likely holding.

He isn’t screaming,

“You’re gay!? CHANGE!”

“You drink on the weekends? Well you’ll die in the bar, you sinner!”

He is saying, I see the life you’re living… The life reliant on these things that aren’t so fulfilling, and I have something better to offer.

I like you (lady yelling at the barista behind the bar), I know who you really are.

I have a plan… rather than being angry, and mean, why don’t you look to me, and i’ll change things for a better.

If we would all stop yelling (like that lady)

clinging to the things we think we need (like the drugs that wear off, and leave you feeling desperate and afraid)

or feeling good enough with ourselves, because we are better than we “could be”…

we could see how great a life without those things could be.