Andi is a good friend of mine from college who, just a few weeks ago, was gracious enough to give my family a tour of the estate of which her father has been the caretaker for many, many years. She is a fabulous writer working on a project that I think has huge potential to be very important and very good.
If you are interested in guest-posting here about your journey towards your dream, let me know. I’d like to start a weekly series, if there are enough of you who want to write about it. It can be based around the dream you want to live, the dream you are living, how your dream has affected your life, or anything in between.
If I’m honest, I must admit that the hardest thing in life for me to do is wait. I’m not talking about waiting for a light to change or waiting for a doctor’s appointment. I can do those things without a problem (After all, I can listen to a great novel or read a great collection of essays while waiting.). No, it’s the big things – the relationships, the jobs, the plans, the promises – those are things that are so tough for me to wait for.
You see, I like to do things. I’m a striver. I have bought whole hog into the idea that I can “make it happen.” I write lists. I send emails. I network my little self to death online. I attend shows and read books and plan classes and blog and write 1,000 words a day. I do and do and do.
This isn’t a bad thing. I need to be true to my talents and work toward what is before me. I try to be faithful to my calling and to my tasks, and I try to live each day with those tasks before me, BUT I cannot make anything happen. That’s just beyond my human power.
Here’s a good example. I’m writing a book. Most days, I spend some time researching and writing – at least 1,000 words (one of Shawn’s suggestions) – and I am making headway. So I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. But part of me wants to work out how all of this is going to come together. What is the structure going to be? What order will the chapters come in? Who will be my agent? What publisher will want this? Who will read this? How will I find the money to market it? In the course of a few seconds, I can go from writing well and feeling content to being launched into next February with my plans – plans that don’t need to be made and can’t be made at this point. I have to just wait and see how things unfold.
So there is this balance of work and repose, striving and waiting – it’s like keeping a teeter totter at that perfect level where no one’s feet hit the ground. I must do what it is before me to do, AND I must wait for One who is greater to bring these works to fruition. I must trust that all things work for good and that it will all come together – my writing, my dreams, my life – just as it should. I need only ride on my half of the teeter totter.
Now go check out Andi’s blog HERE.
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When Your Dream Leads You Into the Dark
When Your Dream is Everyone Else’s Nightmare
When Your Dream Doesn’t Look the Way You Imagined
When Your Dream Isn’t “Sitting at a Desk in the Basement of a Bank”
well crap. for as much as this is about waiting, it has inspired me to act. i’m a pro at waiting. acting…not so much.
I think we can wait and “do” at the same time.
But I don’t think it’s possible to ever wait while we’re controlling things, or trying to, and sometimes we keep ourselves from doing the important daily things while we worry about whose in control.
Great post, Andi! It seems waiting isn’t so much sitting on your hands and doing nothing as it is an active patience, doing what needs to be done and then some, while we learn and grow. It’s scary to work toward something without knowing what fruit it will bear. Trusting is hard, but necessary. Glad to see I’m not going through it alone.
Perfect comment, Chris. You’ve summed up what I’ve been thinking today as I reflected on Andi’s post. Thanks man.
This is way better than a brick & mortar esbsiltahment.