Most of us are not fond of waiting in line. Most of us seem not to be completely satisfied with our present circumstances. We like to escape or go somewhere besides the place we’re now at. If you’re in Great Falls, Montana, perhaps you wish to visit a resort in Sydney, Australia where it is now Summertime. You’d need to drive or take a bus to Butte then fly to Seattle, Washington then soar down to Sydney. All of these steps will likely entail waiting of some sort.
The drive or bus journey might seem long and tedious. The waiting and delays at the airports seem to take forever. Then you wait on the airplane for takeoff. Finally, in the air, you spend hours cramped up in a large, winged tube waiting to disembark at the Sydney airport. Once there, you wait to pass through customs, you wait to find ground transportation and finally wait at the hotel desk to verify your room reservation. Then you’ll have another series of waits while you’re in Sydney for meals, various daytrips and tours or just to be at the beach waiting for your relaxation to begin.
Then, you wait for your departure back to Montana with all the same waits for the return trip and your anticipated joy of arriving back home safe and sound so you can eat at your own table and sleep in your own bed.
Maybe you’re in Norfolk, Nebraska wishing you were at Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Maybe you live in Honolulu and wish you were on vacation in Vienna, Austria. It seems like we daydream about different places than where we currently are located.
You’re commuting to work by car, there seems to be a slowdown of some sort. Maybe it’s a traffic jam or perhaps the lady at the stop light who doesn’t start quickly enough when the light turns green. We wish we were already at the workplace. Once we’re at work, we wish we could be in the break room for coffee or lunch. There’s a meeting in the afternoon, we wish we were at our desk catching up with loose ends. Finally at our desk, we wish we were at home.
So seldom are we satisfied with where we’re at, what we’re doing, and often, who we’re with. There’s a busy signal on the phone when we call a friend. Why don’t they have call waiting? Why can’t I talk to my friend when I want at my convenience? Why do I always seem to only reach voicemail or an answering machine? So many questions, so much that doesn’t measure up to our standards.
So many people with whom to disagree. We don’t like their political views, their religion is wierd or they’re athiestic. Their skin color and hair aren’t to our liking. We might be squeamish about their sexual orientation. They wear unfashionable or too fashionable clothing. They speak broken English. Why can’t they change to suit our demands and opinions? Why can’t they be in the same mindset as me? Why aren’t they happy to live within the social boundaries and limitations that apply to my life?
Don’t you sometimes wish you could be teleported to some utopian planet, far away from here? Living amongst some sort of glowing, superior race of beings that anticipates your every fantasy about the way life “should” be is your waking dreamworld. Gosh, that would sure be nice, wouldn’t it? Goodness, that would be boring as hell! Isn’t there a space transporter back home to earth?
How about if we just spend some time appreciating where we live, where we vacation, and where we work. Can we power down the smartphone, the computer, the teevee and radio? Is it possible to shut off the Kindle, close the book, knock off the video game and put away the iPod for awhile? Can we simply sit in our space and take it all in.
The noisy neighbors, the traffic jam, the forever waiting at the doctor’s office, the endless flight to Sydney are all good places and times to appreciate simply the gift of being alive right now just where we are, just who we are, just who others are without trying to change a single thing about them for once.
Ciao
The Blue Jay of Happiness loves to just hang out in someone’s backyard.
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