Today I watched the following video of Eckhart Tolle telling a joke.  It is pretty funny, but if you do not want to wait around just skip to 2:49 where Eckhart actually makes the joke:

I had to laugh when I saw this.  I realized at the beginning that nothing was actually happening and so skipped forward.  I just did not want to wait.  The joke is truly amusing because waiting for something to happen is a universal experience.  It does not matter how many years you have been meditating, you know what is being referred to when you hear the word “waiting.”

I wait for the bus, I wait in line at stores, I wait for food to cook before I can eat it.  There are a million other ways to wait, but it all comes down to that familiar experience of waiting.

Then there are more personal things we each wait for.  Those might be waiting to grow up, waiting to make money, waiting for a dream to come to pass, waiting for love, waiting to feel happy, waiting for what we want.

A helpful question to ask is, “What am I waiting for?”  The answer may surprise you!  Waiting can be habitual and turn up in a myriad of ways.  Answering this question also makes it easier to see that the condition of “waiting” is more accurately “psychological waiting.”  We wait for things with our thoughts and emotions.

“When this happens, then I can start enjoying my life again,” or, “when I’m finally secure, then I can start working on what I really want to do,” or, “after work is over, then I can relax.”

Like many, I wait for things all the time, but waiting can be a helpful reminder to become present.  When you find yourself just waiting for something to happen, (if you use the internet you know what I mean), use it as a reminder to become present and narrow your life down to your immediate experience.  Use all of your senses to perceive your surroundings.  As if by magic, you are no longer waiting!  You are experiencing life.