Learning to Wait

I used to drink my tea too hot, impatient to start the day. Then I met a woman at a tea shop in Kyoto who watched me burn my tongue and laughed gently. "Tea teaches patience," she said. "The best cup is the one you waited for."

I've been learning to wait ever since. Some mornings it's still hard, but I've come to love those minutes of anticipation. I watch the steam rise, feel the warmth through the ceramic, notice how the color deepens.

That encounter changed more than just how I drink tea. I started applying that patience elsewhere—waiting before responding to difficult emails, pausing before making decisions, letting conversations breathe instead of rushing to fill silence.

All because an elderly woman in Kyoto saw a foreigner burning his tongue and offered wisdom instead of judgment.