Saturday, November 25, 2006

Waiting for life to happen

This weekend has been Thanksgiving weekend. It's always easy to view life as a series of holidays. With the exception of August, we tend to move from one holiday to the next. "I can't wait till Thanksgiving. I can't wait till Christmas. I can't wait till New Years. I can't wait till Presidents Day. (OK, that last one may be a stretch). I heard once that life is what happens as we're waiting for something else to happen. For example, a person waits in line for an hour on the day after Thanksgiving to be one of the first 100 customers that receives a portable DVD player for $29.99. The shopping trip itself only takes 10 minutes but the entire experience lasts an hour and a half. (Drive time included) Most people view this as a waste. The reality is that the whole experience was indeed life itself! If we embrace our "down time" as life, we may discover that it's what we do during life's meaningless moments that define our character. Do we grumble as we stand in line? Do we yell when we're driving on our way to work? (A personal character flaw of my own) Do we glare at the people in the restaurant?

Here's my point to this rambling: Katie and I will wait quite a bit before we get Molly and Zac. (Yes, we've already picked the names) We could choose to think of this as "wasted time" waiting. Or we can embrace it as a life experience in and of itself and enjoy the lessons learned along the way.

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