Patience, dear…. patience.

I am sure you have at one time in your life been on the receiving end of the practical joker who comes to pick you up.  There you are approaching the vehicle when all of a sudden, as you go to grab the door’s handle, the car suddenly jerks away and leaves you looking the fool.  Pretty funny.  You walk up to the car again laughing because the driver is a friend and WHAM, the car pulls away again.  Not as funny this time.  This is how life can feel sometimes when a soul pursues hopes, goals and changes.  It can be frustrating and is almost always a test in humility… but in the end it will stop.  At some point you will either get into that car or take another direction.

The truth is that my life has continually provided me with everything I have ever wanted and needed… and some wonderful things that I didn’t expect.  Never, however, have these things arrived for me when I wanted them to.  Not in my time.  The dangling carrot is a representation of desire.  I want this thing that is in front of me.  It feels out of reach but that, I have learned, does not make it unreachable.  Often it is in the exercise or act of reaching that one learns how to finally reach that carrot… grab the brass ring… and accomplish the goal.

Getting there is the challenge.  But what is life without a good challenge?  If life were easy and the world were handed to me on a silver platter I might actually not be the person I have become.  I am proud of the accomplishments I have had… the MANY carrots I have grabbed.  But while living in the moment the hardest part of growth is the actual growing.  Reaching a destination is heavenly… and it is always in hindsight that we are able to see how important the journey has been.

So why then do some journeys feel so arduous and endless?  More than likely it is because I am looking only at the destination… that dangling carrot… and not the place I currently inhabit.  It is interesting just how many times I am back in this very same  classroom learning this very familiar lesson.  It’s as though I having a learning disability about the easiest path to happiness.  LIVE.  I tend to concentrate on the things I am not happy with… the things I want to move away from.  I look steadily and forcefully… with the intensity I am known for… towards the path to the light.  I see it.  It is right there…. why… can’t… I… reach… it…

Damn it’s been pulled out of the way again.

Every time I forget that I am not enjoying the moment and find myself, instead, looking for solutions that are in the future, I am wasting good, precious time.  Although there is nothing wrong with the quest (growth and goals are a vital part of the human experience) I am going to relive and relearn the enjoyment and recognition of the journey until it becomes a part of my process… you know, like breathing.

I know this will be one of the toughest challenges in my life.  This one has no dangling carrots… it is often invisible and something I am completely unaware of most of the time it is happening.  But the process is improving.  Today a dangling carrot was pulled away.  I stopped.  I took a breath.  I remembered the many times in my life that I have looked back and understood why something didn’t happen as I had wanted or expected it to.  There is always a reason.  If one thing isn’t as you thought you will find another to come of it.  It’s almost bizarre how that works.  Invariably my life and its path is going to show me something that may not have occurred to me were the carrot to have been grabbed today.  In the meantime I am stopping as many times as it takes in order to remember that I am in the here and the now.

I am where I am supposed to be… even if some days that pisses me off.

And I am not quite sure I want to eat carrots every day after all.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be

Posted: 03|1|10 at 10:09 pm. Filed under: What If I Told you....
Tags: change, dangling carrots, living in the moment, patience
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