Coffee guilt

Every morning I walk past my favourite coffee-selling establishment. On my newfound student earnings, $3.50 for a coffee plus a muffin from Hollywood Bakery is more than appealing. It's a need, not a want. Perhaps the plastic-coated chairs and cheap laminated flooring invites too many homeless people off the streets of the less-than-appealing suburb in which I live. But I enjoy the risk of taking a self-serve muffin, as the coffee is surprisingly delicious.

I view my Hollywood Bakery mornings as somewhat of a treat. Less is more, and everything in moderation. All those sayings that apply especially well to food and diet. What's more, it's the psychological effects that I truly desire. I rely on these infrequent treats to lift me up from the bowels of depression that I can honestly say that I've landed myself in already (Only 4 months into my PhD!).

I'm not going to launch into a long explanation of my mental well-being, (as all not being so well, it's rather boring). But I will say that life isn't so simple, and my 'coffee pleasures' are in fact more often than not 'scoffing at pleasures'. In my depressed state, negative feelings such as guilt and anxiety spring up their nasty heads at every opportunity, and the mere suggestion from my internal devils that I'm overindulging myself with coffee and muffins at the wee hours of the morning does just that. Be gone, coffee guilt! I'm so confused...

But here's a study that makes me feel better about it. Perhaps I should just stop holding back and just go for it, pell-mell to Hollywood every morning in an effort to ward off depression with shots of caffeine. (Ironically, I chose this strange terminology thinking that it means 'directly towards at a rapid pace', rather than the 'jumbled and confused' meaning that I was trying to move away from.)

From my own personal experience, I know that when I'm feeling depressed (at work anyway) I lean on caffeine to speed up the snail's pace inside my mind. Or perhaps its the feelings of accomplishment when coffee kicks away 3:30-itis and allows me to read that complicated journal article that keeps the depression at bay.

I doubt anyone is following this, and I doubt even more that anyone is reading this. Is anyone out there?

I feel so depressed, I'm going to get a coffee.