For a pretty significant group of college students, coffee becomes a way of life relatively quickly. People that once vowed to never drink coffee begin doing so regularly and those who came to college with their love of coffee in tow simply increased their reliance.
Even if you don't like coffee, there's this odd feeling that you are abnormal for staying away from it. It almost feels wrong to sit in the library and watch students alternate between furiously typing a paper and sipping their coffee, thanks to the Einstein Bros travel mug.
Let's say you don't love coffee or that you didn't rely on it in high school, but you want to be a coffee-sipping, alert student. This is how it starts. The first few weeks of college you don't need the coffee, but you want it because everyone else is drinking it. Sometimes drinking a cup of coffee (sometimes creamier than actual coffee) makes you feel more productive.
Classes go into full swing and the number of hours of sleep you get dwindles by the night. In the beginning stages of an undying love for coffee, it might feel a little bit like this:
You get a surge of energy, and you feel totally ready to conquer the day (or the whole universe).
I hate to break it to you, but that surge becomes wistfully unattainable with just one cup. A few months in, coffee has become a piece of your soul. You rely on coffee to keep your fingers typing every word your chemistry professor utters.
You plead for the coffee to work miracles for you after a sleepless night spent sweating over a classics paper. The size of the coffee cup you order becomes dependent on the amount of sleep you granted your body. Got 10 hours of sleep? Still need coffee.
You and coffee develop an unbreakable bond. Granted, that bond could be broken if you really wanted (or needed) to cut back on your caffeine intake. But let's be real; if most of us attempted that feat, it would likely look a bit like this:
Once you have truly accepted your need for coffee, you might feel the urge to understate the true love you have developed. Don't do it. People can tell when you've had your coffee.
When the first semester draws to a close, you have probably formed a countless number of bonds with new friends you will cherish for the rest of your life. One of those friends just so happens to be a quality cup of coffee. You guys have had the pleasure of forming a relationship over the past semester, and now, you work together and understand one another.
Don't think of it as a problem or an addiction. Coffee just happens to be your creative fuel.
Embrace it, y'all.
