What Are You Waiting For?

As soon as I have enough money I can do that. As soon as I lose enough weight I can do this. As soon as I get a new job. I’ll do it tomorrow. Maybe someday I can be that and do that and go here and do this and make that. Sound familiar? What exactly are we waiting for? Apparently, a list of things; time, money, motivation, courage, etc. I can make my own list of excuses. That’s what they are, excuses. I’ve let them rule and set the pace for my life. Honestly, I still do, just not as often.

If you google “quotes about excuses”, there’s no shortage of them. Here’s a few that struck a chord with me.

• Tomorrow (noun): A mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored.
• The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse.
• You can have results or excuses. Not both.
• He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. (Ouch! You can thank Ben Franklin for that one.)

Life happens and then life gets in the way because it picks up speed as we age. Our days go from being a six year old remembering a single summer day feeling like a wonderful eternity to collapsing in bed at the end of the day and wondering how summer came and went so quickly.

Some things in life we can control, others, not so much. It’s the adversities we often can’t control: the things that happen unexpectedly. These are the things that have pulled the rug out from under my feet and upset the timing of things I was planning. The losses; the brother, the job, the child, the fire. None of which I had a choice about. What I do have a choice about is how I use these things in my life. Have I allowed them to take the wind out of my sails or to be the wind that keeps me sailing? I am human, I falter, sometimes it’s both. However, I spend most of my time sailing on (figuratively) trusting in the experience and what it’s intent and purpose is for my life and the greater good.

There are times when I have been impatient in wanting something that wasn’t showing up on my terms or when I wanted it to. I know that patience is the most virtuous of the virtues, but, again, I falter sometimes. Why do things happen to get in the way? Why do things happen to make life more challenging? Why do things not happen in my time?

The answer is because it’s life and life is what we make of it. This is a simple way to look at it, I know. I could easily write an entire thesis and go into great depth, but this is a blog, not a thesis. Several years ago, my pastor started a sermon by asking the congregation what we were waiting for? I pondered my answer deeply for the three seconds he paused before giving us the answer. YOU! He said we were who we were waiting for. Huh? He went on to talk about the excuses we all make for not getting things done, pursuing our dreams or achieving goals. No one has more power than ourselves to make things happen. I was who I was waiting for? I AM who I AM waiting for? This was an epiphany! Of course I am. Of course you are.

Everything that has happened in my life I have a choice about. Loss or gain. Now or never. Today or tomorrow. Sail or flounder. I have not always made the best decisions, but I have learned to get through the muck and the mire with more determination because no one is going to walk through it for me. No one is going to do life for me. Only I can.

I have come to believe that we live in a perpetual state of waiting and transition. We are continuously waiting for tomorrow. With the rising and setting of the sun we are being transformed into the person we have been waiting for. I have been slow to step into that person, but I’m getting there. This past fall a close friend took a picture of me standing by the edge of a remote lake basked in the light of the moon. My body appears transparent and is filled with the supernatural light of the moon. We both agree the picture itself is supernatural. I have not shared it publicly because I think he somehow captured a picture of my soul. It’s a beautiful picture, but I am savoring it until I feel it adequately represents me, the me I have been waiting for. I am not quite there yet. When you see it, you will know that I finally fully showed up to my own life. Have you? What are you waiting for?

“Life is always about waiting for the right moment to act.” - Paulo Coelho

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” - E. M. Forster