Do you find yourself in a state of perpetual waiting?
In other words, do you operate from a basic mentality of I just need to get through this period, and then I’ll be good — or — One day I’ll get there?
If so, then we could say that you live your life from a state of perpetual waiting. Perpetual waiting is the sense that we need to get into the future as soon as possible. It feels like we’re just in the “waiting room of life” until things can really begin.
This is an important thing to consider because a profound shift is available when we see that perpetual, chronic waiting is just a state of mind that we live from, and one that we can actually set down and leave behind.
We may not even be conscious of our perpetual waiting. It’s usually something shoved in the background of our awareness. In many cases we don’t even know what we’re waiting for. Instead, there’s just a sense of looking to the future to arrive in a situation that will save us from our situation now.
It feels and sounds like “everything is fine for now, it’s tolerable. I don’t mind it. I can live with it. But it’s not what I want, and it’s not enough.”
In this article I want to demonstrate the subtle ways that we can all find ourselves in the trap of chronic waiting. When we recognize this — often with great honesty and humility — we can switch out of that mode and into a mode that is much more conducive to living a profoundly satisfying life.
If we can really articulate the answer to the question: What is it exactly that we’re waiting for? Then we will have what we need to bring our waiting to a close and to engage with life in a way that truly brings into our experience that which we’ve been waiting for all this time.
It’s quite a trip! You in? We’ll take this step by step.
“I just need to get there”
My finding is that we disempower ourselves through excessive waiting. We truly believe that “real life” hasn’t begun yet. That we need to “get to a certain point” when things will finally be well and we can truly relax and begin to enjoy ourselves.
What that “certain point” is depends on who you ask, but it usually falls along the lines of:
- getting to a certain point in one’s career
- getting to a certain level of business growth
- getting into a relationship
- starting a family
These are just examples, there are many more. In either case, the main belief is that once we get there, things will be truly good and we can live an experience that’s qualitatively better.
Reading that, you might think “but it truly would become better!”
This is true and false, as I’ll explain:
If your business were to suddenly grow and bring in more revenue, that would be excellent. You’d have more money and you’d be able to buy more things, and that would be great.
But would it bring your waiting to an end? I think the answer is no. Notice in your past when you’ve wanted to get or achieve some particular accomplishment, and then you DID get it. Were you satisfied? You certainly were for a minute, or a day, but then you went right back to waiting for the next thing.
The trick is that we truly believe that we’re waiting for something in particular, but in fact we’re not waiting for anything in particular! There’s no actual point to get to. There’s no actual there to get to.
So that brings us back to our original question: What are we truly waiting for?
Arrival
Arrival. We’re waiting to arrive.
Try this out as an exercise:
- List out a handful of major things that you hope will happen in the near or distant future.
- Write down what would be good about these things all happening.
- Write down why these good things are good. What would finally become possible if all these good things came to pass?
- Write down what your life experience would be like in this case.
By the time you complete question#4 you will have a subjective experience that you most wish to step into. What words did you use? A lot of people say things like “I can finally just do what I want” or “I can finally live life the way I want to” or “I’ll finally feel fulfilled, satisfied with myself and life.”
… In other words, you will have arrived.
To have arrived is to be in a place where your present experience is truly good enough for you. To be without complaints. To be happy with where you are. To be satisfied with yourself, your life, and what you’ve done.
Just imagine being in an experience like that! … Like you’ve finally achieved enoughness where everything is enough for you. It’s good enough. You’ve done enough. You’re earning enough. You’ve accomplished enough.
That’s arrival.
Are you willing to arrive?
Suppose this state of enoughness were available for you now, would you like to step into it?
Egos don’t like to hear about this because once you arrive, the ego is no longer the boss of your life. The ego’s function is to figure out how to solve “the problem that is your life”. Once the problem is gone, the ego becomes incredibly insecure.
So how does it feel to talk about arrival then?
What comes up in you? Perhaps a reaction like “No!”, “Not yet!”, “It will never be enough!”
Then at least be honest about your unwillingness to actually arrive.
Let’s get real about how — on one hand — you’re trying mightily to arrive and — on the other hand — you’re absolutely unwilling to arrive. Can you see how that might create a lot of stress, confusion, anxiety?
Truth: Are you willing to arrive, or not?
Truth: Do you have any intention to stop waiting?
Life truly begins when waiting ends
Most people are unwilling to arrive because they don’t want to lose their goals, ambitions, or motivation.
I can promise you that you will never lose your goals, ambition, or motivation. Not even if you tried, could you lose these things. They are part of what you are. You are a creator, an explorer, a worker, an experiencer. You have curiosity, creativity, interest. You have a deep, organic impulsion to expand.
When you conclude your waiting and step into arrival then you can finally allow these qualities to express themselves fully and without fear or contraction.
The heaviness and significance of life can fall away so that you can finally step back into the lightness of your self, where things can get fun once again.
Therefore my sincere suggestion is to bring an end to your waiting and allow yourself to arrive now. To truly allow your life to begin in the most important way.
How to do this?
Start by adopting a willingness to arrive. Starting now.
Declare to yourself that your life is good enough for you.
Declare to yourself that you’re doing enough, that you work hard enough, that you’re accomplishing enough.
Declare that you deserve all the love and appreciation in the world.
Declare that you’re a success, as you are now.
Conduct yourself as if it were not totally certain that you’ll live for the rest of this year. If you only had a few months left to live, what would you finally get around to doing?
Destroy the future. What do you have stored there? Either take action on it, make a plan to take action this week, or let it go.
Bring your life into the now.
