THE ART OF WAITING.
The first thing that came to mind when I started writing this was that J. Cole quote:
“The beauty in the struggle, the ugliness in the success.”
It hit me differently today because when you really sit with it, this line isn’t just about success or struggle but about waiting. That haunting, slow burn period between the dream and the breakthrough. The no man’s land between who you are now and who you imagine yourself becoming. Waiting, in all its forms, is both a blessing and a curse. It demands faith without evidence. And patience without applause. That’s what makes it hard and maybe sacred too. Cole continues in that same song love yourz:
“There’s no such thing as a life that’s better than yours.”
Love Yourz is off J.Cole’s 2014 FOREST HILL DRIVE Album.
We all know this. Yet we’re constantly peeking over the fence. We scroll, compare, covet. We imagine how much better it would be if we were already there, wherever there is for you, that job, that city, that relationship, that version of ourselves that finally has it all figured out and the irony is that, we’re always looking outside while our lives are happening inside. Inside the waiting, the mess and the becoming. Being present is difficult. Because being present requires patience and patience, in the world we live in now, feels like an outdated virtue.
So, here’s a theory I’ve been thinking about:
Let’s say, just for a moment we stripped life of everything we chase. No promotions. No lovers. No epic career leaps or visa approvals. Let’s say all of us were just… waiting to die.if that was the only guaranteed milestone yeah! Birth at one end, death at the other, then everything in between would just be waiting. Right? But we don’t even live that way because we are wired for pursuit and we fill our lives with hope, deadlines, plans, ambition, poetry, grief, longing and all in this sacred space between the start and the end. We choose to put in work and to keep showing up and maybe the reason why waiting is so hard isn’t because it’s empty but because it’s full. Full of desire, possibility, tension, faith, doubt, ego, love, purpose and maybe that’s what makes the struggle beautiful and this should remind us that we still care and whatever you’re waiting for, the next train, the text, the answer, the visa, the miracle, the version of you that feels more “together”. I hope you learn to stand still inside it for a moment. To be gentle with the discomfort and to take a deep breath and know that the waiting is not wasted but part of the becoming and life is quietly unfolding.
A train on the Palm Jumeriah monorail waiting to depart.
Thinking of myself now, I can’t help but notice how I spent the last half of my life rushing and how everything had to make sense, I needed answers fast.I wanted her to love me now and for friends to understand me, for the world to open all its doors at once and the more I pushed the more I burned and i’ll tell you this, nothing teaches you patience like pain does.
So I took a step back.
I stopped sprinting toward the future and started learning how to sit with the present and now, I wait, I wait, but not empty handed, I wait while noticing that the sun is out today and it’s a little harsher than it was yesterday, that my coffee is slightly too acidic because I let the espresso shot run too long and somehow, even that feels okay. I wait while listening to how I feel and not just what I should do as I wait for the great things to come and the greatest of them all being my death and in the mean time I’ll fill this space in between with love for myself, family, friends and for the smallest things that keep showing up quietly asking to be noticed because this… this is life too, the slow, patient middle and maybe, just maybe,
this waiting is the most sacred part of it all.
