Waiting

Have you ever read the book Siddartha, by Herman Hesse? It's one of my favorite books, if not my very favorite. If you haven't read, please do because it is wonderful. You might now like it, as many people don't, but it still worth reading. The book depicts a young Hindhu man who goes on a spiritual journey, searching for the path to Enlightenment. After the first 25 years of his life, he emerges with three skills that he holds above all else: thinking, fasting and waiting (I'm doing this from memory, so I really hope those are right...).

The first skill is a work in progress: I've been a pretty decent thinker all my life and college has helped me improve on that, despite those nasty rumors. Yet, I know that thinking is a skill that I will be honing for the rest of my life.

The second is something completely beyond me. I'm terrible at fasting and probably always will be. The problem is I like food too much. Just ask Hal how much ice cream I eat on the trail; the pints of Ben and Jerry's quake in fear as I walk into the local grocery store. The closest I've ever come to fasting was the three day organic apple/spring water diet I embarked upon while living in NYC, almost foiled by my then-employment at a burrito restaurant. Damn, those burritos looked good by the end of the third day. I am good at feasting, as I will tell you about in the next blog, but I don't think Siddartha would have too much respect for that...

Waiting, now here's the interesting one. Despite appearances, I was a pretty hard worker in college. I learned to multitask, shortcut and otherwise maximize my productivity in order to make possible all the things I wanted to do. This was great, because it allowed me to explore an entire spectrum of wonderful activities that were available to me. Yet, being in such a highly stimulating environment for a prolonged period of time took its toll on me: I think, somewhere along the line, I forgot how to wait. I became uncomfortable with just doing nothing with my time. Don't get me wrong; I found time to relax, socialize and unwind. But to me these were productive uses of my time. Eventually, I forgot how to wait, how to be comfortable with the entirely unproductive passing of time. A common ailment in our society I believe.

One of the most valuable things I've learned from my experiences was really an old lesson. I relearned how to wait. There's something about spending your entire day devoted towards the modest goal of moving 25 miles that makes you realize that losing an hour is really no big deal. That's tantamount to moving 3 miles less that day, which in the larger, 1000-mile scheme of things is a speck of dust on your candy bar: no big deal. When you realize this, waiting for an hour is effortless.