Tea and the Value of Doing Nothing
I compulsively work hard. Too hard. I’d like to get better at doing nothing. And so I built a company that helps me do nothing. I’m its first customer.
Ironically, I worked hard building this company because — as a customer — it makes me really good at doing nothing. I just sit there, drink tea, and appreciate the thoughts that arise and pass away, looking out the window, and deeply recuperating from the distractions that are everywhere.
The company is called Sencha, and it just launched today on the App Store. It’s all about facilitating wonderful experiences with tea. We source ridiculously good tea, make it affordable, and then provide in-depth instruction for preparing the tea perfectly.
As a customer, this is what it looks like: I open the app, select the tea I want to drink, and tap ‘Begin.’ Before long, I have an incredible cup of tea right in front of me. And that’s when the magic happens: all I do is sit there and drink it, entering monk-mode.
I am really delighted by this. I live in a world of constant distraction — I suffer from a smartphone addiction, I read way too much, my friends are full of good ideas which invariably prompts me to be overly enthusiastic, and I’m just plain too progress-oriented. It’s exhausting, and I realize that I need a mechanism for just chilling out and being present.
