Wherever I Belong
11:06:00 AM |
| image © Nina Strehl | |
I’m a great believer in asserting myself wherever I find
myself. I truly believe that I belong wherever I want to belong. Whether that’s
in a boardroom full of people older than I am, or in a classroom learning
behavioral economics concepts with students from all over the world. Yet, as a
newcomer in Coventry which is made up of predominantly old white lower-middle
class people (driving Nissan jukes) and super rich Chinese students who
casually sling $5,000 purses onto coffee tables at Warwick Business School, feeling
at home in a place where I can’t just decide on the fly which cafe/library/park/restaurant
/bakery/pizza/store I want to stop by at any moment of the day can be hard.
I’ve therefore had to be intentional about making Coventry feel
like my space. And just as the monk predicted, I’m finding that one of the
easiest ways to make Coventry mine is
by developing simple, familiar routines even in the littlest things. At home in
New York I walked most morning from my house to the train, stopping at a deli
to pick up a small cup of (slightly terrible) black coffee every morning (except
Wednesdays when I drove to the train and stopped at a different deli to pick up
my coffee).
 |
| image © Ronaldo Arthur Vidal |
The coffee culture in Coventry is a bit different than New
York (you’ll find more americanos than filtered coffee and you have to insist that
the barista fill your coffee to the top as opposed to leaving half the cup
empty for milk—but Starbucks here do offer coconut milk gratis(!)) a few weeks
ago, I decided to reinstate my walking habit, and while walking to university
in the morning (a 30-40 minute walk) I stumbled on Coventry’s equivalent of a
deli, offering instant coffee that I could make and take with me to start my
day. In that moment, clutching a paper cup of cheap (slightly terrible) instant
coffee, I felt like I was home.
Productivity expert and reporter, Charles Duhigg discusses a
mechanism called the habit loop. Repetition creates a mental association in our brains,
connecting our environment or context and what we do. In New York, I liked
walking to work as a way to get in some exercise and stopping for a coffee was
my reward. Yet somewhere in my years of doing that, my morning walks became a
part of why I belonged in New York. My walks through the
same park in different seasons noting changing leaves, foraging squirrels and
the occasional sunbathing rabbit (I’m not even making this up), the transition
from my neighborhood to the neighborhood where the train station is and of
course, the delis where I picked up my coffee all contributed to making those
areas a part of how I expressed myself and my belonging in New York.
Reestablishing those patters in Coventry almost triggers my brain into thinking
yes, I’m home, I’m comfortable here, I
belong here.
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