This probably sounds incredibly cliché and maybe even a bit stupid, but I had a profound realization this morning while I was sipping my delicious espresso.
For starters, I don’t usually make espresso most mornings. Usually I have plain regular coffee. I save espresso for either special occasions or times when I really need a boost.
So here I am sipping my espresso when the realization hits me. This tastes really good. Not just that, it tastes smooth and delicate and I might even compare its warm embrace to that of a favorite blanket. It sounds crazy, but I’m serious.
Then I thought back to the time before I liked coffee at all. We’ve all been there, when you have to drink flavored coffee or layer on the cream and sugar. Heck, most of America is STILL there. Anyway, I used to need cream and sugar to enjoy coffee too. The thought of black coffee was horrifying, let alone the taste. I used to wonder why black coffee tasted so bad when it smelled so good. I’m serious.
So now you might be wondering how I went from that to now enjoying my black espresso and complaining about how adding cream or sugar only takes away from the coffee’s flavor.
The answer is actually really simple. I trained myself.
Training yourself to like something is probably a lot easier than you think, all you really need is a desire. It’s like mom used to say when you tell her you hate vegetables: “learn to like ‘em!”
I trained myself to enjoy black coffee before I came to study in Norway just a couple years ago. The reason was simply that I didn’t expect cream and sugar to be widely available in cafes here. All it took to train myself was simply starting to drink black coffee a couple months before I got on the plane.
Yeah, it tasted bad to me at first, but every time I had coffee I forced myself to drink it black. After a while it was a habit and, even if it wasn’t my preferred method of coffee intake, I was used to it.
After a bit more time, I started to taste other subtle flavors in coffee that weren’t there before. I even began to taste the paper filter from my coffee maker (thus moving to a coffee press).
Now here I am enjoying the delicate taste of black espresso without the slightest desire to add anything to it.
This may all seem rather irrelevant if you don’t care about coffee, but I’m starting to believe that you can train yourself to like anything. Exercising, reading, eating vegetables, taking risks, public speaking, anything that might seem scary or unpleasant I think you can train yourself to love. These things might even end up being your favorite things somewhere down the line, it’s just your natural reaction to dislike change that prevents you from seeing it right away.
So try it! Next time you find yourself doing something you don’t enjoy but would like to, open your mind to the experience and and maybe, before you know it, you will love it.
Note: This is NOT an excuse to train yourself to accept anything but the best from yourself. It is not in any way a method to promote laziness. Quite the opposite actually.
