The Why Are You Here Cafe

This book followed a queer encounter by a man who decided to go on a sabbathical. His decision to avoid a jam led him to a cafe. In the cafe, he met the owner, the helper as well as a fellow diner who shed some light on how life should be. When he flipped open the menu, he was greeted by 3 questions:

• Why are you here?
• Do you fear death?
• Are you fulfilled?

These questions seem to relate to his dining experience or it could also refer to everything in life in general.

The reason for existence led to the purpose of existence. What do people do when they find out the purpose of their existence? Most people will do all it takes to fulfil this purpose. In order to gain greater mileage from your effort, the analogy of a sea turtle was used. A sea turtle might not seem to exert alot of effort when it swam. Yet, it could swim further and longer by learning how to ride with the waves. If the sea turtle was moving away from the shore, it would paddle very hard when the wave was moving away from the shore. However, it would just float along when the wave was moving towards the shore so that it would not exert too much effort going against the flow.

The story that got me thinking for a long time was the story about a businessman going on a vacation and meeting a fisherman. The businessman was very surprised that the fisherman would only catch enough for his own feed per day. He would not fish more despite the abundant supply of fish and ample time. One day, the businessman approached the fisherman to ask if he could and would catch more fish. The businessman proposed to the fisherman to catch more fish and sell the excess to get money for an early retirement. The fisherman was curious on the purpose of the retirement. To which, the businessman replied that with early retirement, the fisherman could then do whatever he wanted, including more time with family, or to fish more leisure. Yet all these finer things in life could already be enjoyed by the fisherman if he just devoted some time a day to fish for what he needed. On the contrary, if he wanted until his retirement to be able to play with his children, his children would have grown up by then and would not want his company. Many people lost their focus and the reason for work after a while. This led to us doing things which we have already forgotten why we were doing it in the first place.

The book also linked the pursuit of wealth to the prevalence of advertisements. The advertisement inculcated in our minds desire for material things to fulfil our emotional well-being, especially happiness. Hence, we worked to buy something to cheer ourselves up. After we bought, we became guilty and had to work harder. As we worked harder, we became depressed and wanted to buy more things to pamper ourselves. This itself became a vicious cycle.

The reason why we feared death was connected to the first question. We feared death when we did not know our purpose or when we knew our purpose but were not doing something. While doing things to get fulfilled, we could meet with obstacles. Passion would help fuel our determination and pave the way as passionate people influence others around them to want to help them achieve their goals. In addition, sometimes the solution can also be as easy as adapting to the situations rather than working against it.

After completing the book, I started to reflect on my life. How I was just like the author of the book wanting an escape and not knowing the purpose of my existence. Maybe I should start searching and do more to fulfil this purpose rather than cruise along each day.