You are the one you are waiting for.

Looking back on my life, I find that much of the time I was waiting for something to happen.  It might be a person. It might be an event.  It might be a vision. But it was like being stuck in mud with the only hope of getting out being some outside force.  It seems incredible that I accepted this limitation.  I don;t mean that I was a passive slug never getting out of my comfort zone.  I went to college.  Excelled in some things. Was adequate in others.  But the things I did were within the conventions that ruled my life.  I was always hoping for some outside force to take me somewhere new- somewhere exiting.

I don’t know where that model for living comes from.  I guess it is one I formed from watching people in my life.  Certainly we get the idea that chance or luck is somehow important in determining how things turn out from our culture.  People hope for some kind of intervention to take their existence from marginal or ordinary to special.  They buy lottery tickets.  They imagine a long lost rich relative leaving them an inheritance.  Many of the plots for movies or TV shows are built around some fantastic intervention in the lives of ordinary people that takes them on an unexpected adventure. Nowhere do you see the idea that you are the one.  Is it the creeping nanny state controlling and limiting more and more of life that sets us up to be dependent?

For myself, It makes me sad when I think about all that time waiting.  What was I thinking?  Why was I so passive and inert? What made me so dependent in my thinking and actions? I don’t know.  I wasn’t the only one.  And there were a few daring souls who made their lives into glorious, or at least interesting adventures. What is the difference that made them take those risks and soar?  What made them think that they were in charge? And what made me know that I was not?

Now I understand just what a handicap that mindset has been for me.  All around me I was attributing the success of others who were taking responsibility for their lives to luck or chance while waiting passively for my bit of good fortune.  All that time wasted makes me sick.  Considering that I have achieved some success in my life, can I even imagine what I might have been able to do if I had just acted.  Now I realize that I am the most important force in my life.  I can cramp that force so that it can only operate in reactive mode or I can release it to be the dynamic and powerful engine that can take me anywhere.  My engine is running but only I can decide whether to stay in neutral or shift into drive.  If I stay in neutral, I can be pushed in any direction by any outside force.  If I shift into drive, then I decide where I go and how fast I want to get there.

I often heard as I grew up people say that you can be anything you want to be in America.  Somehow, there is a disconnect between the talk- “You can be anything you want to be.” and the walk- “Don’t make a fool of yourself.” That makes most of us wimpish about facing life. That is how it worked for me.

How different would my life be today if instead of waiting for outside forces to sweep through my life and get me moving in whatever direction they were going, I had become that force.  Is it too late?  I hope not.  Anybody out there relate?  Share your thoughts with me.