“Waiting”
...I’m waiting, until I find the right words to write to my
dear friend, who’s just lost her dad.
...I’m waiting for a free moment to go on line and send that
money I promised myself I’d send to that Syrian appeal.
...I’m waiting for inspiration to arrive, so I can write a
Blog, sign up for that Pilates class, invite my new neighbour over for a meal,
shed weight or decorate the bathroom.
...I’m waiting for a perfect time-slot to appear, so I can read
that article and watch that TED talk that I know will benefit me.
...I’m waiting, hoping that something will get me going, that
some outside force will get my arse in gear. I’m waiting for the magical moment
that will galvanise me into acting…waiting!
…I’m waiting too for new, life-giving thoughts to arrive in
my head, for fresh, spine-tingling inspiration and I’m waiting for a shed more
compassion and kindness to blossom in my life.
As I write these words, I glance back over my shoulder at
the long-body of my life, with a slightly queasy feeling, as I vaguely
calculate the amount of ‘waiting' that I’ve done over the years.
‘Waiting’ becomes the norm if I have no pressing sense of
urgency to discover where I’m headed, or have no passionate purpose for my one beautiful
life.
I was moved by a recent TED talk by the Kenyan activist Boniface
Mwangi. His talk, entitled,
‘The Day I Stood Up Alone?’, picks open his
epiphany moment, when he realises why he’s on plant earth - why he’s here. His
passion and sense of deep mission & purpose is palpable and infectious.
If we’re honest, life has a way of reducing us to fretting
over the mundane and pulling us into the petty and the trivial – although it never seems
like it at the time.
I can easily loose my peace over my scratched kitchen tiles,
the breaking of my favourite teapot, or a parking ticket (that gets me
seriously hot under the collar). I loose my peace over the trivial and give
away my equilibrium too easily.
Why?
When I’m obsessing over the bloody parking ticket, that I
unjustly found slapped to my windscreen, or the gouges in the kitchen floor
that my tenants left behind, my mind becomes dull and my heart heavy and
laboured.
And, I sense myself slowing down and losing energy as I get
trapped on the hamster-wheel of negative emotions.
I end up WAITING for my rage to subside, WAITING for someone
else to apologize, WAITING for the rain to stop, for jealousy to ebb away and for my peace somehow to return automatically.
WAITING = lost time.
What we really need is ACTION.
It’s when I get up and get stuck into the mess and
misery, the complex and the challenging stuff of life…and when I write that letter, get myself to the Pilates class and feed my
own hungry soul with TED talks and meditation, that I find my purpose and
discover why I’m here.
Shalom
-JB
