The Inertia of Waiting

I'm not a patient person.  I never have been.  When I decide I want something, I want it now.  Waiting is not a game I'm good at.  The universe has been trying to teach me patience my whole life, but, as I often say, it's taking too long.  I recognize the value that patience has, and I truly admire those with the fortitude to accept that now is not always the right time, for whatever reason.  One of these days, I'm going to have to accept that too.  Just because it isn't now, doesn't mean it's never.  Soon is not the same as the wishful someday.  Soon implies an action that will happen and relatively quickly, albeit not quickly enough for my timetable.

Life has a way of forcing the impatient to sit still.  Calming the eager heart.  Putting to rest the overactive soul.  Circumstances don't always align the way we wish they would, and we are forced to sit on the sidelines when we are itching to get in the game.  In situations like these, we may not see the benefit of inaction.  We might feel that we're headed to that dreadful, most useless place, the waiting place.  It's somewhere we've been before, and it isn't somewhere we're interesting in visiting again.  So what if life forces us back there?

It seems to me that the disappointment of waiting doesn't have to mean sitting still.  That there are lessons to be learned, ways to grow, actions to be completed, even in the state of wait.  The key is opening our eyes and hearts up to finding the compensation in the disappointment.  Preparation is a great way to fill the waiting time.  As is personal development.  There's also the beauty of anticipation, which in many cases, is as good or better than the action being awaited.  I'm convincing myself that the patience I'm learning through the times life forces me to sit still when I want to spring ahead is well worth the discomfort of waiting.  That the sheer act of not getting the things I wish for in this moment will make those things even more rewarding when it's finally time.  That the inertia of waiting here isn't going to hold me down in the end, but it will surely shoot me on to bolder dreams, dreams I haven't even thought of dreaming up yet.

There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are

all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails,

human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we

make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.

-Jane Austen