Everyone knows the experience of waiting in a line that’s at a standstill. You have a plane to catch, a growling stomach, or a long-awaited package to pick up, but you haven’t moved in 5 minutes. At the very minute you’d like time to speed up, it slows down to the point where you have to check your watch to make sure that the concept of time itself hasn’t broken. At the start of the semester, I’ve been in quite a few of these lines. Hoards of students swarm the post office, anxious to pick up Amazon packages containing all the forgotten college essentials. Even more students flood the cafeteria, anxious to make social connections and not yet sick of its food. Another crowd of students fills up the gym, as “New Semester Resolutions” have to be kept for at least a couple weeks. So yeah, there’s been a lot of waiting lately.
Waiting doesn’t always have to happen in a physical line: sometimes it’s waiting for that email or that phone call or for that person to respond to your request. I’ve done a fair amount of this type of waiting lately too. Waiting for my official major declaration to be processed so I can start on an application to take classes at the Health Sciences Center, waiting for information about my new job, and waiting for scholarships to bring down the scary number in my Bursar account. This kind of waiting can sometimes be even more painful, as it can stretch days or even weeks (if you’re at OU save yourself the trouble and assume weeks).
However, we still haven’t scratched the surface. How about the kind of waiting that goes on for months, or even years? And no, the Norman Chick-fil-A drive-thru line doesn’t fit into this category, even though it might appear that way. I’m talking about the kind of waiting that keeps you up at night. How long must I wait to discover my purpose in life? How long must I wait for (insert name here) to accept me? How long must I wait until I am successful (smart, fit, liked) enough that I can be happy?
Friends, I know I’m not the only one to wait in long lines, and I certainly know I’m not the only one to deal with questions like the ones presented above. And while I don’t yet have a way to speed up time, I’m starting to learn ways to sit with the uncertainty, the doubt, and the anxiety that comes with waiting. My goal is to share a few of these strategies in this post.
In a few cases, the answer is to challenge the idea of waiting itself. For example, in one of the questions above I brought up the idea of waiting for happiness. This sounds like a ridiculous idea, but it is constantly being reinforced in our culture. Buy this workout program—if you follow it you will get the body you need, and you will finally feel satisfied. Work hard to get accepted to this university—if you do you will be respected and be happy. Follow these steps to make yourself more likeable—surely if you are liked by many happiness will follow. The problem with these promises is that they are simply not true. Unconsciously, I have bought into these ideas a number of times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you have too. The problem is that the end that you are working for never materializes. You work out hard, you have lost weight and look better than ever, but still you feel empty. Each time you fall into this trap it feels like you sink lower and lower, until it seems that maybe you just weren’t destined to be happy.
As hard as it is, the only remedy for this problem is to choose to be happy where you are. Yes, I said “choose” and yes, I know that statement sounds cliché. However, there’s really no way around it. Even if you achieve a big goal of yours and feel satisfied for a time, there will always be something bigger. Even if you get a raise at work, there will always be someone who earns more than you. Even if you qualify for the Boston Marathon, there are always Olympians around to make you feel inferior.
I think there’s two key things you can do to choose to be happy where you are. The first, as hinted at by the statements above, is to give up the comparison game. You will never be happy where you are as long as you continue to compare yourselves to others, hence the often-quoted statement by Teddy Roosevelt: “comparison is the thief of all joy.” Will you try something with me? The next time you are tempted to compare yourself to someone else, choose instead to compare yourself with who you were yesterday, or an hour ago, or 5 minutes ago. As long as you are getting better, why should you worry about what the person next to you is doing? I struggle greatly with this, but I am making a renewed effort at it and I hope you will join me.
The second thing you can do to end needless waiting is to change your perception of life as a finish line to a perception of life as a journey. I can be happy where I am today even though I’m not on top of the mountain peak where I’ve set my sights. Why? Because I’m enjoying each step taken up that mountain, relishing the work at the same time as I take in the view. What does this look like in practice? It will vary person-to-person, but it might look like you being grateful for your math class, even as your grade hangs in the balance and your skills remain weak. It might mean you celebrating finishing a one-mile run, even though you’ve run fifteen in the past. Regardless of the circumstances, your happiness doesn’t need to wait until you’ve reached a certain level of performance or success. It can be present here, right now, in this moment. All you have to do is be open to it.
So far, we’ve covered only unnecessary waiting, and explored the myth of waiting for happiness. However, there are some things we really do have to wait for. And as it turns out, the continuation of this post is one of them. As much as I’d like to write all night, I have things to get back to and I’m sure you do as well. I hope you will come back next week (or possibly before) to read the continuation of this story.
Note: I found myself using the word “you” a lot in this post. I don’t know why, it’s just a part of my writing style I guess. However, if you see the word “you” the advice I’m giving is probably advice I’m also directing at myself or advice I’ve been given over the years. If I care enough to write about something, I’ve probably struggled with it at some point in the past (or present). In this blog I will seek to share my reflections, but never will I intend to convey that I have it all figured out (and those of you who know me know for a fact that I don't). With that being said, if you have your own ideas about any of the topics discussed or feedback in general, please feel free to message me. I always enjoy learning more, and maybe I can incorporate it into future posts. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you here again soon.