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Greenville, SC: I’m sitting at gate A3 of the Greenville/Spartanburg International Airport, waiting for my flight to board.
I spend a lot of my time waiting. Waiting for flights to board, waiting for
shows to be booked, waiting for calls to be returned.
All this time waiting gives me time to think about how much
I hate waiting. I do the work, I put
in the time, I give it my all… but sometimes – most times – I still end up
waiting.
Which makes me think back to my
first blog post of the year.
The one where I stated my word of intention. And I’d like to make a retraction.
Or request a re-do. My word of intention this year has been passion. Maybe I
was too naïve to realize you can’t just state that you
want passion. Three months into the new year, I realize I need to
preface my passion with patience.
It’s not that I don’t know what I want. I am pretty clear on
my goals, both personally and professionally. And I’ve got a vision board to
keep me on track if I lose sight or have a memory lapse. My prayers are
deliberate and specific.
It’s just that it seems as though things are moving in the
right direction, there’s a halt. Or a detour. Or worse, a big block of time
where nothing is happening. It’s not
that my passion is any less, but it’s hard to keep being passionate when it
doesn't seem like any progress is being made. People talk about figuring out
what you want and going after it. But no one talks about the amount of time it
will take for these things to manifest.
There are tough lessons to learn in this period of patience:
- Not everything you want to happen is going to
happen when you want it to.
- Whatever you think the next logical step is
going to be may not be it at all.
- Trying your hardest and doing your best doesn’t
mean you always win.
- Being authentic and laying your cards on the
table doesn’t offer any guarantees.
In my almost (almost)
40 years of living, I feel like I’m constantly re-learning these lessons, while
waiting for the next thing to happen or the next person to come along. I’ve
also learned that having that elusive thing or person isn’t going to make
everything better or make me totally happy. So I’m trying to remind myself that
THIS moment, as it is, is enough. Even if this moment means that I have to
continue to wait.
We’ve been taught that
nice guys finish last. That’s hard to
hear because I don’t want to have to wait until
the end (end of my life? end of the world?) to get it. Luckily, a good friend changed up the old saying
to make it more meaningful:
Nice guys (or gals) don’t finish last, they finish BEST.
So before I second-guess my passion or slip into the rabbit
hole of “it’s never going to happen,” or more specifically, “it’s never going
to happen for me,” I will:
And during this period of patience, I will:
- Choose to believe that the wait is for the BEST
thing / person to come around. (Which might take more time than I’d like.)
- Trust that I’m exactly where I am meant to be.
Right now. Just as it is.
- Remind myself that in the end, if it’s time it will take, then it’s time I will spend.
- Board this flight. Because at least in this moment, the waiting is over.
