My Hungarian friend nearly wet herself when I told her that I re-use teabags. Her compatriots might be no strangers to poverty but squeezing an extra cup out of a teabag was, according to Szilvi, “taking frugality too far”, as the tears streamed down her cheeks!
My own beginnings were humble, bordering on destitution, but the habit of putting a used teabag to one side and using it again later is actually a fairly recent thing for me. You could say I have been flagrantly wasteful for the past few decades!
I’ve spent many decades helping to squeeze out my potential and the potential of others. And it occurs to me that reusing teabags is a powerful metaphor for that. So much of what we are capable of is squandered or overlooked. We don’t always extract the most we can from opportunities. And we discard so much useful stuff because of poor self-esteem and failure to recognise our strengths.
As I work with clients this year, both through my coaching practice and facilitating group workshops, I think it’s worth making the tea break a bigger focus. My experience has shown that there is so much more to be gained by using our resources more completely. That is not only sustainable, but sensible also.