The Art of Waiting
One of the inevitabilities of life is waiting. We all wait. Your average driver spends 20% of their time waiting at red lights. Have you ever gone to a restaurant with a line? After taking your name down at the host station the next thing you receive is a wait time, not a table. And, once you get the table you still have to wait for your food. If you have ever been to a DMV, going into that situation, you already know that 90% of your time spent there will be waiting.
Waiting has a tedious quality to it. The wearisomeness that ensues from waiting typically stems from the fact that on the other side of that waiting period is an expectation, a desired outcome. The implication of waiting is that there is something worth waiting for on the other side. The problem that usually comes up is, the thing that we are waiting for, and the duration of time spent waiting, may be disproportional.
To go back to the restaurant analogy, most people probably have no qualms with waiting for a table anywhere between 20–45 minutes depending on the occasion. The issue arrives if they must wait for an hour or more for a table. Then suddenly, what was once a worthwhile wait has become a hassle, a chore, and in some cases not even worth it.
The same can happen as it relates to our dreams and aspirations. Sometimes we lose hope because what we want is taking too long to show up. What do you do when what you are passionate about, is not necessarily, passionate about you? This is where the art of waiting comes in, because in most cases a delay is not a denial.
If you are living in alignment, then what you are pursuing is indicative of who you are. In other words, you probably are not waiting for something that is not worth waiting for. If you are, then you have already answered your question on why what you want has yet to manifest.
The reality of waiting is that it is a proactive activity. To wait is a verb, meaning to stay where one is or delay action until a particular time or until something else happens. When you are asked to wait, more often than not, it is out of your control.
This can be frustrating, because in all realness, who likes waiting for anyone or anything? We live in the information age meaning, that we have an instantaneous mentality. With a near infinite amount of information at our fingertips, it is quite easy to disillusion ourselves from the concept of waiting.
Unfortunately, however, for those who do that to themselves, they deny themselves the beauty and value found in patience. Patience is a characteristic of love. To wait for someone or something means that you love them/it. Sometimes we must wait because God wants to see how much what we are waiting for truly matters to us.
You are a spiritual being having a physical experience meaning, that life expresses itself through you. This is valuable to understand because as you live, you grow into who you are not what you want. Sometimes a waiting period, is a maturation period.
Part of manifesting the life you want is getting on the vibrational frequency of what you want. An easy example for this, is if you want to be rich, then you have to take on “rich characteristics”. Do you do what rich people do? A simple behavioral change makes all the difference in the world.
If you currently find yourself in the waiting room of life, consider how you are waiting. Are you waiting with a positive expectation or a negative one? Do you have one foot out of the door ready to give up, or are you leaning in and doing all you can to be ready to receive good news.
When you patiently wait for something, you give it room to manifest. You invite it into your life and allow it to take up residence. When you loathe the waiting period, what you want may not show up, and if it does, it may not show up how you intended.
For example, imagine you are going somewhere with a friend or family member and you are waiting for them to get ready so that you can go. If that person does not have an ample amount of time to prepare themselves, and you start rushing them, a myriad of things could take place: That person may decide that they do not want to go anymore, they may still go but then end up having a bad time because they were rushed, or they may forget something important and delay the entire experience even further.
The same is the case with our goals and desires. There are some things in our lives that we cannot rush. That does not mean they will not appear; it just means that you have to give them time to appear.
The art of waiting can be summed up in one word: diligence. How diligent are you? The secret to success is consistency. To be considered an expert at something means that you would have put in at least 10,000 hours into your craft. From a pragmatic perspective, have you put 10,000+ hours into your craft yet?
This is the sole difference between a person who waits well and one who does not. A skilled waiter is familiarized with timing. The bible says that there is a time and place for everything. Impatience is a neglection of that fact — Which in turn is a neglection of reality. You must respect time, but you must also put in time. There is no get rich quick scheme that could possibly work fast enough.
There are no shortcuts in life and excuses are the tools of the weak and incompetent. The art of waiting says that when the going gets tough, I am not going anywhere. The value in this is that when you commit to something you activate staying power.
Staying power is a game changer because on the other side of staying power is breakthrough and momentum. The longer you do something, eventually, the better you get at it, the easier it becomes, the more successful you become. Progress is an equation; the problem is most people do not like math.
The art of waiting is about having a positive expectation, executing on consistent action, and allowing time to run its course/being patient. When you are pursuing something that is worth waiting for it is a lot easier to do the aforementioned, than if you are not.
To use our restaurant analogy one more time: If you really like a restaurant, it virtually does not matter how long the wait is, there is a higher probability that you will wait. In fact, if you like the restaurant enough, you will even call ahead of time to make sure that they have a table ready for you by the time you arrive.
Start making reservations for your goals and dreams. While you are waiting, visualize the experience. Inject yourself into your compelling future. All this requires is vision, and if you are waiting for something, more likely than not you have a vision for it.
It is not unreasonable to live and believe for a life that is truly reflective of who you are. Societal structures are designed to demolish individualism. If you value who you are, wait for what is yours. It cost more to try to keep up with someone else than it does to focus on yourself. Learn to wait for what is yours; you will be 10 times happier than if you do not.
