The Relentless Clock: Waiting and Waiting

A month after my previous (first) blog, I decided I should probably post more often than, say, every month. So here I am.

I've never been patient. I can't stand still, and it's not a nervous twitch or an itchy scratch, it's because it's hard for me to sit anywhere or do anything without actually, um, doing something. Scientists and psychologists call it some attention deficit disorder-thing, but I call it impatience. Especially when you come from having an entire summer off of school to relax and forget about school things, then start the next school year. I hate the feeling of having just finished something, then having to start over or realizing you technically weren't finished, but you've already celebrated the end and moved on. School is the number one thing that blows out the little candle that I like to call "my patience." When I stop and think that I have another three years before I finish just my bachelor's, I get mad. Mad at myself, for not starting school sooner after finishing high school a year early; mad for not starting community college a whole year sooner, when I could have; mad at having to pay to take the same classes I took in high school again (what, the first 3 math classes I took didn't count?!?). Really mad at a system and culture that places such a high level of importance on a degree, a title. It isn't necessarily the same thing as an education; you can earn any degree out there and still not really learn anything. But, when in Rome...

So, for my almost-conclusion, I'm not patient. It doesn't come naturally, or easy, nor do I find it fun. And it doesn't help that people can throw out those sayings like: "Good things come to those who wait," "Patience is a virtue," and "We'll get there when we get there!" You see, I don't want to have to wait, and I was reflecting on this earlier (which made me want to write it out), when I starting thinking of the Adam Sandler movie Click. It's one of my favorites, and one of the few of Sandler's that I love. He plays a character with a great family, great career, really has it all. But having it all isn't good enough all of a sudden. His family is demanding, he's overworked and can't reach that elusive promotion, and the dog has to be let out. So he comes across this fancy doo-dad remote control, something to "make his life a little easier." It allows him to rewind, fast-forward, pause, skip over anything. Almost instantly, life get's easier; he's able to skip the unpleasant family dinners with his parents, fast-forward through work projects, and the dog "goes" faster than ever. Life seems great.

But it isn't. Soon, the remote begins programming itself, fast-forwarding through the things that its user wanted to skip. Family fights, dinners, work, all goes by in the blink of an eye now. And when before he was just moving forward by a couple minutes or an hour or two, now he jumps ahead months and years. It gets to the point where he wakes up one morning, and he's divorced with his kids all grown up; he has gotten all the promotions without remembering doing any work; and his beloved dog has died, to be replaced with a traitorous impostor mutt. He was able to skip all the hard, tiresome, and mundane things in life, but ended up ruining everything, losing everything. The movie shows that those seemingly hard, tiresome, and mundane tasks we humans face on a day to day basis, are the very things that can make life worth living. Family fights can be vicious and brutal, but people aren't perfect, and couples that argue are at least communicating their feelings and thoughts instead of holding it in and drowning under the pressure of things unsaid. You can slave for hours and hours in a dead-end, stupid job while slowly rotting to death in your cubicle (if you're really lucky the company will lay you off before that happens) but sitting in a cubicle every day is better than hearing the hungry and cold cries of my family. And I can't count how many minutes and hours I've wasted sitting in traffic, or how many poopy diapers I've changed recently, but if that traffic is what I have to get through to work, and if those diapers are what I need to change to spend time with my son, so be it.

But my story doesn't end there. Even after watching that movie several times (and crying every time), I still didn't fully grasp its message. I'll admit there were times that I wanted to fast-forward through school and silly jobs to a finished degree with starting out on a great career. So I went through another couple years of being impatient, cursing at traffic, and loathing the school system.

Finally though, a breakthrough; finally, a light bulb clicked on somewhere, somehow. I was staying up extra extra late trying to finish my latest book, Gettin' There by Steve Farrar, when I came upon one of those sentences that you wish you had read years ago. Farrar was writing about impatience (surprise!) and one sentence on page 90 reads like this:

The problem with waiting is that when we wait, we think that nothing is happening.

That one sentence hit me hard. Hard enough for me to start walking excitedly around the bedroom at one in the morning and waking my wife up ("What're ya' doin'?" "Nothing, just reading honey, go back to sleep." "Whatever.")

I realized what my problem was; I always felt like nothing was getting done by taking the same classes over, working dead-end jobs, doing mundane chores, on and on and on. Oh but there is something going on, something amazing, miraculous, heart-stopping. We are being prepared. For what? For the next step, the next season, the next duty we are to perform and fulfill in this short life. Look at Moses, who grew up in the Egyptian royal palace, murdered someone, ran away, and wandered the desert for 40 years before God brought him back. Look at King David, who was anointed with oil by Samuel in preparation for the throne of all Israel but didn't actually sit on the throne until years later. They both had lessons to learn before, not after, they were supposed to lead entire nations.

So the next time you're stuck in class listening to another lecture on how 243 times 8.5 equals F, remember that this is preparation for the next class, the next degree. Next time you find yourself stuck in rush hour traffic, remember that you just worked your butt off to provide for your family and they can't wait for you to be home. Next time you get in a fight with your spouse (and you will, if you truly value honesty and communication), remember that they are an imperfect human being, just like you, who desires nothing more than acceptance and love, from someone they can share the class troubles, the traffic, and the poopy diapers with.

That's all the time we have for now folks. I really got going, thanks for sticking through till the end!

Next topic: Why No, You Actually Won't Use this Mathematical Equation in Any Real-Life Situation Whatsoever.

That Uneasy Silence: New Beginnings and New Adventures

I don't know what it was exactly that pushed me over the edge to finally start writing here. Maybe it was the hints here and there from my wife, telling me that I should. Or the fact that if I'm going to be getting a degree in English, and hope to be a sort of writer some day. Or the urge to express what goes on in my head; you can only day-dream and wonder for a short while before you go insane and need an outlet for your thoughts and dreams. Maybe I'm bored, have too much time on my hands, and want to stay up as late as possible on a work night.

Except for that last reason, all of the above have had a small part to play in me finally writing something, anything. I've always enjoyed writing, enjoyed thinking through ideas and building them in words. For the longest time I wouldn't though, or couldn't, or figured I shouldn't. I'm not sure why exactly, but the desire, the longing, to write was there; the technology was there (Blogger.com is great!); and I had plenty of time. Yet I just couldn't make that first step, to finally start writing. For so long I've wanted to, yet didn't.

Well, now the time has come. The dam has broken, and I am not plugging it this time; I'm letting the waters come out. Sure, I might not write something each and every day, but at least I can tell myself that I've written at least one day's worth already, and with that, one more day will be no problem at all. So expect to see some more from me, whether it's something generic ("Work was good today") or funny ("I tripped and fell on my face") or thoughtful ("Why do we try so hard to control everything and everyone around us?"), whatever I end up writing I now know that I'll be able to write it out and share it with you.

Here's to the end of the silence, and the beginning of something, God willing, grand.

-Corbin L. Foster