But first, coffee…

These three words. I never expected they would come to mean so much.

It really isn’t about the coffee though, is it?

More than simply a cafe culture, it’s a philosophy, and I’ve come to understand that it’s also key to our sense of well-being, and our ability to make good decisions.

Coffee is given a bad rap at times. It’s one of those things, like red wine and salt, that people assume is bad for us. But as with many “vices”, it’s not the drug that is the problem, it’s how it’s used.

Glugging down ten cups a day to get the caffeine hit, or to override the body’s need to rest, isn’t a healthy approach.

Yet taken mindfully and in moderation, it can be a powerful medicine.

But it’s not really about the coffee. It’s about the “pause”.

What I’ve come to truly love, and benefit from, in Croatia, is the “Polako” approach, taking time, no stress, no hurry. I’d been so taken by this term, I’d even recently decided to have it tattooed on my arm as a reminder.

The irony is, even on the very day I was getting the tattoo, I was still to learn it’s true meaning and how to apply, but it was that day I also had the epiphany.

I’d been many times baffled, frustrated even, at this obsession around coffee here. In meetings, when trying to make an arrangement with a friend, and most notably, when trying to get any paperwork done.

“There isn’t time for coffee right now”, I’d think to myself.

I was wrong. There’s always time for coffee. I’d now go as far as to say that everything works better after coffee.

So it was a weekday morning, and we’re flitting around the Old Town, trying to find a tattoo studio that’s open, or with availability, but it’s proving tricky.

I’m with my friend Shir, a digital nomad originally from Tel Aviv, and she’s leaving in a couple of days and this is our last chance. I’d shared the concept of “polako” with her whilst she was here, explaining how it was one of my most important lessons here, and she loved it so much, she decided she wanted a tattoo with the word scribed on her arm, a souvenir of her time here in Croatia, and a reminder of what she had learned about how to live.

I decided, especially having gotten into the “busy trap” too much again recently, that I also needed the reminder – every day, every hour, every minute – to slow down.

But something wasn’t working. Everywhere was closed for winter, fully booked for three weeks, or out for coffee, who knows?

Then it came to me, and I’ll be forever proud of my ability in that moment to think like a Croatian:

“Let’s get coffee!!”.

We sit, we relax, we take a pause, and twenty minutes later, Shir gets a reply from someone. Not only can he fit us in, but he loves our idea and is excited about helping us. He’s exactly the right person, he even draws a design on the helmet we’ve bought a friend for his birthday.

It’s all worked out perfectly. We are like two excited kids on Christmas Day, a moment in time I will always remember, and now the tattoos have even more meaning.

“But first, coffee…”.

This is integral part of “Polako”, because things always work out better when we take a pause, a breather, just let our system settle down.

I’m reminded of a quote from one of my favourite books by Viktor E. Frankl.

Frankl was an Austrian psychologist, a survivor of Auschwitz, who wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning”, one of the most important books in history about how to overcome difficult situations and life’s challenges.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response, lies our growth and freedom”.

So really, it isn’t just about the coffee. It’s about our growth and freedom, and who can argue with that?