‘What do we want?’

‘Patience!’

‘When do we want it?’

‘NOW!!’

As this joke so cleverly illustrates, we have, by and large, become a rather impatient culture. Many of us do yearn for a sense of stillness among all the rushing around, some time for quiet reflection and rest, but we often want it now, quickly and easily, available to us whenever we need it, like flicking a switch on and off. Busy. Stillness. Busy. Stillness.

Yet the times which call on our patience, at a deep, psychological and even spiritual level, tend to come when we least expect them, and mostly not by invitation. Often these times occur at those crossroads in our lives where we move from one life stage to another. The teenager taking her place in the world of adults, the young carefree man who grows into the responsibilities of fatherhood, the woman whose children have left home and who is now maturing into a new sense of self. Other times might be an extended period of study, where we are developing towards a new career but are still unformed in our knowledge and competency. Pregnancy is a long wait towards the birth, and recovery from a serious illness or trauma can take months or years.

These are slow, deep processes of development, much of it happening below the level of our everyday consciousness, but all too often we want to transition straight from being a caterpillar into the butterfly, without the waiting time of the cocoon. Like the characters in ‘Waiting for Godot’, we’re waiting around with no guarantee that Godot will ever come. Shouldn’t we be going somewhere, doing something, ticking a few boxes on our endless lists of things to do and, while we’re at it, get the bucket list happening as well?

Waiting can seem disempowering, as if we’re a damsel in distress waiting for the prince to rescue us, rather than taking responsibility for our lives. It is certainly true that we can spend too much time in waiting, getting stuck at a point in our lives while opportunities pass us by. Yet there are certain processes which can’t be rushed. We sow some seeds in a pot and then wait weeks for the seedlings to emerge. We want to make some changes in our lives but need to be patient with the deeper processes of transformation.

While the act of growing seedlings can’t be rushed, we can provide optimal conditions for the plants to emerge and thrive. Similarly, in our own lives, we can endeavour to create opportunities for the waiting times to develop in their own natural rhythm, so they can bear fruit when the time is right. In the modern world we don’t always have a narrative which honours times of waiting, of being in the cocoon for a period of time.

For a while now I’ve been trying to teach myself to be more patient with the need to wait. One small example is when I’m in a hurry and find myself stuck behind someone slower (a slow car, an elderly person, a family with little children). Instead of getting impatient, I pause to silently thank them for slowing me down. It’s a small gesture, but it turns around for me that constant imperative to rush. As Milton said in his famous poem ‘When I consider how my light is spent’:

‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’

Mindfulness idea:

What are some of the waiting times in your life? Can you slow down a little, for example through meditation, and find a way of consciously valuing these times?

Anja Tanhane