Work life balance- an almost unattainable mantra for the modern urban office worker. You work long hours and respond to emails over the weekends just to keep your job, to say nothing of getting ahead. You take multi-tasking to levels that would shame your swanky new computer.
When you finally get a moment, how do you de-stress? Common solutions include boozing, binging on food, exercising and partying. Of the 4, 3 will often leave you physically worst off than before, hampering your productivity and the downward spiral continues.
Since this is a tea website, the author’s solution is naturally related to tea. Not an end-all-be-all solution but as part of the solution.
Chinese author Zhou Zuo Ren, often better known as the brother of Lu Xun (Lu Xun was his pen name in case you were wondering why the brothers have different surnames) summed it up best when he said: “茶道的意思，用平凡的话来说，可以称作‘忙里偷闲、苦中作乐’，在不完全的现世享受一点美与和谐。在刹那间体会永久.”
This is translated as- “The core value of Cha Dao, if expressed in the vernacular language can be described as ‘stealing a moment of leisure’ or ‘making light of suffering’, enjoying a form of beauty and harmony in an ethereal world, experiencing eternity in that very moment”
It’s quite a mouthful and frankly sounds quite eastern mumbo-jumbo, especially once translated. Let us take a closer look at it and why it actually makes perfect sense.
Stealing a Moment of Leisure
Nobody understands leisure like cats do
忙里偷闲 is literally translated as stealing leisure amidst busyness- a virtual necessity and welcome respite for most of us. In the craziness of our daily schedule, you can understand why leisure needs to be ‘stolen’.
There is an almost ritualistic calm about making tea, especially if it’s brewed gongfu style. The act of making tea and tea appreciation- especially in Chinese tea ceremony- focuses a lot of holistic, sensory experience. Smelling, sight, touch then finally taste.
The focus needed to properly make a cup of tea- not that it’s difficult but merely requires effort- helps the brewer relax, take one’s care away from the difficulties and strive of the world and enjoy the moment.
The best part is, it does not really need to take a long time, it can just be a couple of minutes, in the office even but the impact can last longer than that.
Making Light of Suffering
苦中作乐 is an interesting Chinese idiom- making light of suffering or literally joy amidst suffering. Zhou Zuoren’s choice of words is even more interesting given that the word 苦 can mean both bitter and suffering. Hence there’s a bit of wordplay on ‘bitter’ given that all teas in some form or fashion have at least a slight hint of bitterness.
One of the reasons why tea is favored is for the ‘hui gan’- a recurring sweetness that wells up after the tea is consumed, sneaking in from the throat, to the mouth and eventually lingering and replacing any initial bitterness.
This phenomenon is the physical embodiment of the Chinese idiom 苦尽甘来 which literally means ‘the sweetness comes after the bitterness’, often used as a word of encouragement.
Without dwelling into the socio-psychological aspect, tea tasting- even tea tasting in the office- helps us not exactly make light of suffering but alleviate our feelings of jadedness and lethargy- a common ailment of office workers.
Most of us don't have space for the whole setup on our workstation
The act of savoring and appreciation the subtle to not-so-subtle taste changes lets us focus our senses on something other than our woes and as the sweetness washes over the bitterness, delayed gratification seems all the more rewarding and pleasurable.
Replacing bitterness with sweetness- isn’t that what gets us through each day?
Beauty in Simplicity
Of course unless you work in the tea industry or have an office of your own, it may be quite impractical to bring the whole kitchen sink to the office.
We have talked about some ways you can enjoy tea in the office and the occasions of tea in your daily life.
It can be immensely rewarding and gratifying- a moment of leisure amidst the hectic schedule that enslaves us each day, helping us take a step closer to work life balance.