“Are you a habitual ‘waiter’? How much of your life do you spend waiting? What I call ‘small-scale waiting’ is waiting in line at the post office, in a traffic jam, at the airport, or waiting for someone to arrive, to finish work, and so on. ‘Large-scale waiting’ is waiting for the next vacation, for a better job, for the children to grow up, for a truly meaningful relationship, for success, to make money, to be important, to become enlightened. It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living… Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don’t want the present. You don’t want what you’ve got, and you want what you haven’t got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and now, where you don’t want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present.” ~ The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Don’t you find it interesting that even though life is here and now, in this precious moment, right in front of our eyes, we choose to ignore this moment, which is where life is, because we are too busy waiting for the “real” life to begin? 

We’re dreaming of this magical rose garden over the horizon,  always striving, but never arriving. Always dreaming of the day when we will finally get there, to this magical destination where we will be able to rest and enjoy it all, in the land of milk and honey. Failing to realize that where we are right now, that’s our life. That’s what we’re meant to fully enjoy and appreciate.

Instead of waiting for life to begin, we should learn to embrace the life we are now living. To appreciate it, to love it and to fully live it, because if we don’t, we’ll continue to think that the present moment is nothing but an obstacle that we need to overcome in order for us to get to that “magical” place that is out there, far away in the future. And in the end we’ll miss out on life, and  we’ll miss out on everything. Because contrary to what we were led to believe, life is a journey, not a destination. Life is here and now.

And in the closing, here’s another great video from Alan Watts where he explains, in a way only he himself can, the problem with waiting for life to begin. A short but very powerful video with a very profound message. You’ll surely love it!

Enjoy:)

The Problem with Waiting for Life to Begin

~love, Luminita💫

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