The waiting room.
One moment, please.
I remember once I had to sit in a waiting room. I had injured my finger and was going for my final session to see the hand specialist.
It was a very busy clinic and I had a long wait, but I always make it a point to have a book and my ideas journal with me, so I managed to do some reading, and the inspiration struck me to write a post about waiting rooms.
I even got in a few minutes of meditation.
Please take a number.
It’s a pretty compelling metaphor.
We spend a lot of time waiting for the perfect moment to begin something, and until that moment arrives, we stay comfortably seated in the waiting room and read magazines about other people doing cool stuff.
Most of us are inspired by the obstacles our heroes overcome to achieve their goals and dreams, and we talk about them at parties and read books about these inspiring people, but somehow they are special and we are not.
The same rules don't apply to us.
I just love a juicy reason something can't work.
I have a small wooden box near my desk. It's right next to the tic-tac-toe set I made for my dad when I was in the eighth grade that I reclaimed after his death.
I write down every good excuse that I hear and put it in the box.
In my work, I’m someone who has the great good fortune to hear some pretty amazing excuses, as people I coach are attempting to squeeze through narrow spots in their lives or untangle complicated knots they have spent years tying, so I take them seriously.
I’ve never heard an excuse I didn’t fall in love with, for within each and every one of them is the hidden seed for success.
The Hall of Fame Excuse
I was once hired by a busy entrepreneur to coach & support her staff as she was wrapping up a year working on an intense project that had fallen behind schedule, and was causing stress and uncertainty for her team.
I got a call a few minutes before a scheduled appointment with one of her senior people. A sheepish voice came on the line and apologized profusely for not being able to make the call.
No problem, everybody gets one "get out of jail free card." Of course, I was excited to hear a potentially new excuse, so I asked him what came up.
Oh, my house is on fire was his calm reply.
Go big or go home did not apply here as his house really was on fire and he was rushing to get back there. I was deeply moved by his ability to stay balanced and upbeat, in spite of this great hardship he was enduring.
We even had a laugh as I told him he had just entered the hall of fame, for the best cancellation excuse I had ever received.
This experience showed me he was a perfect example of someone who was not living in a waiting room. He took it in stride and found a perspective on it that allowed him to be grateful.
He wasn't happy about it and he wasn't in love with what the moment had presented, but no one had been hurt and it saved him from having the extra work of having to de-clutter.
It turned out to be a moment of great clarity for both of us. Life happens and sometimes in very dramatic ways.
Whenever I find myself making an excuse, I’ll open the box of the most wonderful excuses and read a few. It always cheers me up and motivates me to keep walking the path I am on, as steadily as I can.
I fall down, and I veer off course, and I struggle and get stuck, but as long as I keep coming back to it, I'm not in the waiting room.
A textbook example.
A while back I met someone at a social function. She told me she would never work with a coach because she was afraid she might start living the life she had only dreamed of for years, and what if the dream turned out to be not as good as she thought it would be in her head?
I had to laugh - what else could I say but - What if the dream turns out to be better?
That is a textbook example of “living in the waiting room. ”
It may seem odd or even absurd, but excuses are often very irrational on the surface, and deeply embedded in beliefs and patterns of thinking.
Once-in-a-lifetime.
If we are honest we can admit many of the rituals and ideals within our culture are what I call “once-in-a-lifetime” moments.
We prize these moments, as if the rest of the moments don’t mean too much, they are just filler.
Filler is another way of saying - please take a seat, we'll be with you shortly
The wedding.
Most likely, you have been to a few weddings.
But every once and a while you show up to one that is really spectacular, more fun than 99 percent of the rest of them. Why?
Is it a big budget? Nope, that is no indicator it will be memorable.
Size? Nope. Bigger won’t mean it’s better.
Catering and location? Sure they play a part but they are not the magic ingredient for me.
In my mind, great weddings are those that are not treated like a fairy tale.
They didn’t try to make it “extra special.” They set out to throw a good party and really enjoy themselves, and they stopped worrying about whether the event would live up to the impossible expectations of a “once-in-a-lifetime” moment.
Every moment is a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
You just had one reading that sentence.
We so cherish this “once-in-a-lifetime idea that it paralyzes us in many ways. I believe we should all get off the fairy tale bandwagon or we'll end up sitting in a waiting room for long periods, waiting for the magic to arrive!
If we don’t begin something, we have less chance of being disappointed, so the waiting room becomes a fallback position for us, as there is always a compelling reason not to begin living quite yet.
It becomes a very startling choice with each passing day you are alive.
It makes you wonder if the great tragedies in life are not in the operating room, they are in the waiting room.
It's where human potential goes to wither and slowly starve to death.
Achievement starts long before you achieve anything. True happiness must begin before you succeed, not after you do.
The moment we decide to walk out of that waiting room, we have engaged in the process of 3D living. The waiting room is 2D.
Whether you're about to retire or just beginning your career, whether you're on the winning team at this moment or still learning how to get into the game, whether you're in your dream job, or wondering what the hell you should be doing with your life, this is it.
This is the moment you work with, and you build what you wish to experience into it.
The biggest, most repetitive and achingly sad excuse is always - the time is not quite right yet.
While I agree the outer circumstances may not be quite right, the inner game is not something that needs the right timing. The time is always right to work with what you have, and where you are, and when you work with "what is " and not some fantasy, you create the foundation for the future to become something better.
Start where this moment has placed you
Use what resources you have right now
Begin
Working on yourself is not about making your life some plastic problem-free existence, but to give your everyday life the value and meaning that is hidden from view by expectations and fear.
We often spend so much time focusing on the outcome, we leave joy by the side of the road, and forget to savour the steps.
Imagine going to the best restaurant in the world and being presented with the most extraordinary food you had ever seen in your life. I imagine you would savour each bite as we savour each bite of a delicious meal rather than just gulping it down so we can eat our next meal.
Balancing your achievements and desires with being mindful of the moment is a lifelong practice. It will always be a juggling act, but those that do it well have more fulfilling and contented lives, for they have made the connection and stopped living in an imaginary future.
Look around at your world, at your workplace and you’ll see it isn’t hard to spot the people who are living in a waiting room.
Experiment with letting all your moments be equal and sacred. This is good news. It means “not” achieving something is only a step towards eventually achieving it. I think it’s the only way to cut down on the time you spend in the waiting room.