Wait, Waiting – I have had a strange love-hate relationship with this word. And even stranger experience.
It feels like a suspended Pause, but it isn’t – It just looks like a pause on the outside – but it is a State. It can often be long and not quite the same always on the inside.
Waiting is defined as to remain stationary in readiness or expectation
Waiting for food, waiting for someone, waiting outside a shop, waiting while being waited on, waiting in a queue, waiting for the rains, waiting for the sun, waiting for the result, waiting for the next episode, waiting for birthdays, waiting things to change, waiting for children to grow up, waiting for life to finally start, waiting to write, sing, travel,….do something
If we just see, we are.. mostly waiting. We are waiting to experience – more than experiencing. Something is odd about that.
We get so used to this state that often we forget we are waiting, and like what we do when in a waiting room or a queue, we get busy with ‘things’ – get on to the phone etc. I wonder, as humanity – are we waiting and forgotten, what we are waiting for?
We have also glorified this Waiting and made it a Virtue, with all kinds of sayings.
Last evening – While I was outside an ice-cream shop, I don’t particularly ice-cream but this day I just had a craving for Naturals coconut. There was a long queue. I waited. I got “busy” listening to something on the phone. By the time I got my ice-cream I had forgotten I was waiting for it. And then suddenly I found myself still standing in the queue, even after I got my Ice-cream. Humm fallen asleep.
This behavior made me think about Waiting. And how we get used to the “Wait State”. I decided to enter and examine it.
Waiting is a state of pausing in anticipation of a certain “outcome”, expecting certain outcomes. And in a way till that does not happen we stop ourselves from “experiencing “, what is going on. No wonder we are anxious, we are often in the” future moment” – not in the Present. So much so that often , when we get a response that is “different” from what we were waiting for, we are confused and will often push the experience to fit our expectation – This works both ways.
The Ice cream melts.. and the plot thickens
Waiting on the outside may look the same, but on the inside it can be many things. Based on what is happening inside the experience of waiting can vary from Joy to Dread
When the expected outcome is Happy, the nature of wait can be bubbly and joyous. On the other end, if, like in a hospital waiting room, it is dreaded – the experience can be anxious.
We create all our Joys and sorrows long before we experience them “ –
Khalil Gibran
I realized it is a whole range from Fear to Love. The Nature of Wait on the Inside often shapes the outcome outside
On the Inside
Waiting can be “Tolerance” – Constricted, fear driven, anxious, tense, waiting for things to Close. You can feel it in held breath, clenched fists, sweating, nervous “wired-up” feeling, it is restless unquiet.
Like when we are waiting to cross the road, for something that is unpleasant to pass, waiting for “reports”, in an argument, when we wait for the ambulance to pass…
Or
Waiting can be “Patience” – Expanded, faith driven, joyful, waiting for things to Open. It feels like bubbles rising inside, relaxed, you smile inspite of yourself, take deep breaths to fill the expansion inside, it is quiet and peaceful.
Like when we are waiting to open birthday presents, waiting to see someone we love, waiting for a flower to bloom, waiting for the first sip of hot chocolate, for the butterfly to sit on your hand.
Either ways whatever will be will be- But we are left either Contracted or Expanded. For the next set of experiences to come in. Which means even when life offers Abundance, which it often does, our container can and does decide how much we can take in.
Waiting is creating a Container for experiences. And it can be a Choice
We don’t have to fall asleep waiting. Perhaps we have gotten into a ”Waiting Mould”, that we need to look at. Perhaps we need to examine it. Perhaps waiting does not have to be a Passive Act. It can be an Active one. Perhaps we already got what we were waiting for and just are not able to see it? Because we are practised in Waiting not Getting
Perhaps we need to look at what are waiting for? And on what grounds for how long. What are we expecting to happen?
I have always believed that people and things grow into our Expectations of them, not our desires of them, so maybe we need to look at our “Expectations” and readjust – Perhaps we need to move our Wait state – from Fear to Faith.
In our waiting, we are creating our reality, consistent with the nature of our Wait State.
I remember these lines from a song…“What are you waiting for another day – another time, someday you’ll have to find a new way to be…”
Perhaps we have been waiting for “someone” to come and make this world OK for us. And maybe that Someone is us? Perhaps we have waited too long??
4 Comments