I dislike the waiting game. The worst thing one can do to another is to make them wait. Waiting is full of uncertainty, at times, anxiety, and often not, frustration. It's easy to say "good things come to those to wait" - afterall, you aren't the one waiting. The grass is definitely less green on the waiting side.

I suppose waiting can help you cultivate patience. But it can also cause your blood pressure to shoot through the roof, your heart beat consistently faster, make you lose concentration on something you were meant to be 100% focused on. Life is a waiting game. From the moment we awaken, we wait. For the toilet, in the queue for breakfast, for a call, a text, an email, for work to end, for a certain day, etc. Unconsciously, we wait. Consciously, we still wait. This sense of time passing without giving us an answer we expect permeates life.

First it was for academic results, then when that was over, for scholarship interviews and offers. And when I thought it was all over, that it was a process I can safely tuck into the tightest corner of my memory and (hopefully) never have to relieve, it begins all over again as I wait for an answer for university placement. How did it come to be that I got accepted everywhere but the one place I needed to get into? Ironic, yes. Though one can, and probably should, see it as another example of how life is shrouded with mysteries. The only thing that we can do is to embrace it with open arms.

I find myself thinking, dreaming of the future when all the amazing things happen. When everything goes my way, the way I envision it to be and more- then again, that's why they call it a dream - the exact opposite of reality. I never believed in phrases like, "dream job/car/house/vacation" because that's why life is so amazing but at the same time so unbelievably and irrevocably annoying. Things don't always go according to plan, but when one door is closed, its because there's another one somewhere, open, waiting for us to discover it. Hence my favourite phrase: "beyond my wildest dreams".

Yeah, I am what people would label as an optimist. I am probably 10 times more optimistic than an average person when it comes to being optimistic (thus mum's advice of being shrewd when I have to). But at the same time, I am 10 more more pessimistic than the average person as well. I try not to hope, because I hate the feeling of being let down. I don't always share good news until they are set in stone, because I loath the feeling of letting others down, of having to tell others otherwise. I don't know how these qualities will work against or for me in the future, but if I could live life all over again, I would still choose to grow up the way I have been brought up.

They are right when they tell you that you need to know bitterness before you can appreciate even the smallest bit of sweetness in your life. They definitely know what they are saying when they say to wait it out. Afterall, storms can't last forever can they? Focus on the rainbow after the storm, and you will see the storm with a different eye.

I'll wait with a renewed sense of hopefulness.

Labels: hope, optimism, waiting