Name: Sonali
Age: 23
Occupation: Yoga Teacher/Artist/Salesperson
What do you love about coffee?
There are so many different kinds of coffee, and you can make it in so many different ways. There’s not just one kind of coffee, or one kind of latte, or one kind of cappuccino. There are a million kinds of espressos, and different ratios, and bodies, and ways that you can make it. That’s what I like about it. There seems to be this sort of never ending road to coffee. You can always create something new, something exciting, and do something spontaneous with it. It’s high energy too, which is great.
What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment to date?
I’m really proud of my independence – my personal independence. Just being able to live on my own, and depend on myself entirely. Be able to say, “I guess that I’m making it in the city.” Just coming from family who was not – back in the day, my grandfather didn’t come from money. He used a streetlamp to get light for his schoolbooks because they couldn’t afford to pay for electricity past a certain hour, and he really built himself up. So his independence was very important to him, and that has kind of been passed along in my family. My personal independence is something that I am really proud of. To be able to say, “I do this on my own. I live on my own. I can depend on myself” is really important to me. I’m proud of that.
What has been the greatest obstacle or struggle in your life?
Umm…all right, I’m going to get real…haha. My biggest obstacle or struggle in my life is that I suffered from horrible anorexia when I was little, and I eventually had to go to a hospital treatment program for it, and they hooked me up to a heart machine and all that junk. That was really hard for me to overcome. And now, I’m at a point where I’m able to share my story with other people to tell them that you can get through this, and it’s way better on the other end once you get past that huge margin of fighting against yourself. When you look in the mirror, your biggest enemy is yourself, and one of the hardest things to overcome is your subconscious and your own ego. To say that I’ve mastered as much as I can at the age of 23 and to be able to say that I can stand on my own, look in the mirror, and say, “I’m happy.” I’m really proud of that.
