When I think about life, sometimes things can seem so dark and stormy and sad, but it’s usually because I am looking at the “gap” instead of the “gain.” I learned about this concept from author Annie Grace; this idea that “the only yardstick by which one should measure themselves is by how far they’ve come.” Look at what I have, not what I am lacking. When I focus on the gap instead of the gain, the chasm to cover seems insurmountable, but it’s partly because there is too much pressure to have “everything” right away, right now, whatever everything is to me.
Whether it is to be in the dream relationship, have the dream job, be the goal weight, or the goal size, to have true financial security, and so on, but even if I won the life lottery overnight and had everything I always wanted, I wouldn’t be happier, because the joy is in the journey, the excitement is in the adventure of muddling through the unpredictable and the unknown, and there is beauty in the wait.
The joy is in the audacity to overcome against all odds, in the tenacity to fight for what I want, and the miracles and magic in the arrival of just one of those things I have been searching for when it serendipitously knocks on my door. It reminds us of the depth of emotion and complexity that is our human experience.
Life is not about what we receive. It is about what we give. Life is not about what we have, it is about who we help and how we heal. It is about the memories and minutia in our journey each and every day and the connections we make along the way because none of us is getting out of this alive.
Who will you help? How will you heal? Where will you carve your path to wholeness? What are you waiting for?
No matter what you do, remember, there is beauty in the wait.
