Fifty Cups of Coffee #25: Marlynn Jayme Schotland
Date: August 26, 2024
Location: Tigard, Oregon
I keep getting asked what my answers would be to the three questions that I ask each person during these 50 Cups of Coffee chats.
Now that we are halfway through this little experiment, I thought I’d share my answers in the same format I share everyone else’s.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments!
What I’m doing now
Right now? I am typing.
In general, I’m just living each day trying to do the best I can. I currently live just outside Portland, Oregon with my husband Alain, our two kids (one in high school, one in college), and our lovable Lab Retriever, Ace. I run the food, wine, and travel website Urban Bliss Life, and am a cookbook author and TV chef.
Three questions
During these Fifty Cups of Coffee chats, I ask each person the same three questions. The reasoning behind each is as follows:
Question 1 – Social media makes it easy for other people to think that they know us, when truthfully, we all only see a small sliver of someone’s life and who they really are. This is the interviewee’s chance to share something that is important to them that, for whatever reason, other people may not know.
Question 2 – We all have fears, no matter who are are or where we are in life. This helps connect us and show we are all more alike than we are different.
Question 3 – I believe the answer to this question helps show each person’s true values, passions, and their why in life.
There are no right or wrong answers to any of these. I’m including each person’s answers in first person, as they are told to me.
Their answers have been edited from my notes for length and clarity, but these are their words.
What is one thing you wish more people knew about you?
I am a Pisces through and through. Even though I’ve worked online for 20 years, I am actually very sensitive. I feel everything – everything – deep in my soul, whether I am just reading about something in the news that happened 5,000 miles away or talking with a stranger in line at the grocery store. This leads to chronic overthinking of epic proportions, and constantly second-guessing myself.
Also, while I adore meeting new people and hearing their stories, and traveling to new places I’ve just met, I do need a LOT of quiet alone time to recharge. I can’t function without it.
What is your deepest fear?
Like most people, I am fearful of having something horrible happen to my family and losing my family.
As an entrepreneur, I am in constant fear of losing my livelihood. I have a visceral fear of losing everything – my family, my home, my security – because even though I know I will fight to survive, I also am aware we live in a world where life can change for anyone at any moment. On the other hand, I also feel that fear actually keeps me grounded and grateful, and is part of the reason why I work so hard.
Right now, I will say that my biggest fear is that my children will grow into adulthood in a world where evil prevails. That we end up living in a world where people like myself and my family – PGM/BIPOC, and my husband and I as an interracial couple – have few places where we can truly feel safe. I fear for all of my lesbian, gay, and trans friends and family, and all of our beautiful lesbian, gay, and trans kids. I fear for my daughter and her female friends, worried that they’ll grow up with fewer freedoms than I did or even than her grandparents did. I have a deep, horrible fear of living in a world where ignorance-based hate rules. And that fear motivates me to try to do all I can to combat hate, even if it’s just one small thing each day to help spread kindness and compassion.
If you had unlimited funds, what would you do with your life?
Oh my, where do I start? I’ve got a lot of ideas, so I’m going to share them in bullet points!
- Pay for my kids’ colleges.
- Take care of my parents and give them whatever they need. Pay off their debts. Take them on trips around the world.
- Take care of my brother and his family and give them whatever they need. Pay off their debts. Buy them a new house, cars, and pay for all the lessons my talented nieces and nephews want.
- Pay for medical bills for all of my closest friends and family.
- Open up a place that’s a coffee shop by day and wine bar at night, with a side little bookstore with reading nooks.
- Start a million scholarships to help underrepresented kids without the means pay for college.
- Build clean water systems in places around the world that don’t have access to clean water.
- Keep our current home and also have homes in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hawaii, Japan.
- Buy a vineyard, start a farm.
- Add more dogs to our family. Ace would love that!!
- Take language, gardening, and art classes, and dance, voice, and piano lessons.
- Travel everywhere whenever I want with my family and friends (and pay for their travels).
- Own a media company that allowed journalists to tell the stories of all the good people are doing around the world. I’d write articles, host podcasts, and do shows featuring amazing, compassionate, helpful people around the world.
- Invest in small businesses that are women-owned and minority-owned.
- Have a personal trainer, stylist, and personal chef. Yes, I love cooking, but I would also love to not have to figure out what’s for dinner every single night.
Lessons Learned
I’m going to use this section to share what I have learned so far from my coffee chats with others.
- Lessons from Question 1 – The answers people have given during these coffee chats mostly lead to one common theme: we are each so much more than what others see, than what others may believe based on witnessing snippets of our lives.
- Lesson from Question 2 – Most people fear losing loved ones, but also I noticed that the fear of Alzheimers is sometimes even greater.
- Lessons from Question 3 – Many people answered this question stating that their lives would not change too much. And I love that. I also love all of the different ways people have mentioned they would give back, whether to their own friends & family and/or to the world beyond their communities.
I’ve also learned this very valuable lesson: it is much too easy to let years go by before connecting with those we love.
So make the call. Send the text. Set up that coffee/wine/hiking date. Life is way too short, and our connections are way too important to let slip away.
Learn more
Visit my main website: Urban Bliss Life.
Follow me on Instagram: @UrbanBlissLife
Learn more about me at MarlynnSchotland.com.
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