Found this in my files, from a while back:
I’ve been here since 4pm on Saturday afternoon, it is now Monday morning – I’ve been waiting. I have had no choice but to wait. I have to get back to school.
Waiting here has shown me, or made me contemplate, many things – especially things about waiting. I’m not the waiting sort of person; I don’t like to sit around doing nothing, just waiting. Oh yes, I’ve had plenty of time to read my book, I’m almost finished ( The River Why by David James Duncan – 4 stars). I couldn’t do much else – my luggage is already at my destination, my books, clothing, knickknacks – everything I need to be “productive”. But in the end, waiting it what I have had to do.
So many people are stuck in “The Waiting Place” for a good portion of their lives. They are waiting for any number of things. “The Waiting Place” is not a place that I created, it comes from the immortal Dr. Seuss. In Dr. Seuss’ book, Oh the Places You Will Go, he writes about “The Waiting Place”. It is a place that, inevitably, everyone will spend time at in his or her life.
It is easy to identify this airport terminal as a “waiting place”. The truth of the matter is that it is harder to see other, non-tangible, or hidden, “waiting places”. Many “waiting places” are disguised and easily fool many people. Life has many of these “waiting places”, and, in fact, life can be one of these “waiting places”.
Many people are constantly and continuously waiting – waiting for a break, a raise, a promotion – waiting for something interesting to happen to then. They wait in an invisible line, with their name on an invisible list, waiting for an invisible person, in an invisible room to miraculously put their name at the top of that invisible list, so they can get ahead.
Waiting.
Why wait? There is a choice in life – each of us controls our own destiny. If a person leads a “dull” life – that is his or her own fault. Interesting things happen to everyone, it is just that some people recognize these things as interesting, while others look at these things as nuisances, or bothersome occurrences.
It is all in perspective.
“Two men look out from prison bars,
where one saw mud, the other saw stars.”