The Zen of Waiting

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I’ve always had a soft spot for Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! There’s this one page, though, that pinches my heart every time:

“Or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
Or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
Or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
Or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.”

Waiting. Just the word makes me twitch. I have a fear of waiting and the emotional toolkit of a three-year-old. You remember that marshmallow delayed gratification research? The one where they test if kids can resist eating a marshmallow to get a second one later? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULDN’T EAT THE MARSHMALLOW? It feels like a test for five-year-old psychopaths.

I’ve been wrestling with the art of waiting recently. Last week, I watched True Spirit with my kids, the story of Jessica Watson, the Australian sailor who circumnavigated the world alone at age 16. The scariest part for me wasn’t the storms or the isolation; it was the two weeks where the wind died down entirely, and there was nothing poor Jessica could do but sit and wait. And wait. And wait. It made me realize, you can tell a lot about someone by how they wait. Do they jiggle their limbs, make conversation, or start fiddling with stuff? Making a home within your own skin is terribly hard.

Before my first child was born, well-intentioned (probably) people said to me, “Sleep now because you won’t be getting sleep once he comes along.” (God, I hope I don’t say these stupid things to the next generation of mums.) It’s such insipid advice. You sleep when you need to sleep. You can’t store it up for when a baby comes. Similarly, I’m not sure you can harvest activity during a busy season to occupy yourself when things get quiet.

Carl Allen, that real estate mogul with the inscrutable grin, always says, “You never, ever, ever, ever submit a second offer if the seller didn’t counter your first. Otherwise, you’re only negotiating against yourself.” It’s brilliant advice. Don’t negotiate against yourself. And it’s a concept that hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized that in life, when we hit a pause between our efforts and the world’s feedback, results, or answers, we often do the exact same thing. We spin out, take action just for the sake of action, and end up negotiating against ourselves.

This brings me to my current predicament. It’s been a week of waiting for me, and I’m not coping. They say not knowing what's next is a sign you’re on a more authentic path, taking agency of where you want to go. Very often, what feels like an end is, in fact, a beginning.

Did you know hippos need to be submerged in mud to keep their skin cool? I’ve been watching Big Beasts on Apple TV with my five-year-old. There’s this glorious footage of hippos crammed together, desperately as submerged as they can get in what’s left of the mud at the end of a scorching summer. We used to play a game in England called stuck in the mud. A stick in the mud was a 1980s British insult. Being stuck is no good. But—being stuck can be an intervention. This quote; a breakthrough.

Strategy!? Now you’re speaking my language.

And maybe that’s the trick. Waiting isn’t about passivity or wasting time. It’s a strategy, a necessary pause where something deeper is being worked out—within us, in others, or in the universe. It’s the gap between prayer and answer, the mud where we find ourselves stuck but not defeated.

So here I am, stuck in the mud, waiting for the wind to pick up. If you find yourself in the same boat, pull up a chair and wait with me. Let’s see where this journey takes us. We can always spin our waiting as a negotiation tactic against the universe. ⛵

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