"Less is more" the saying going, conceding quietly that we always think "more" is better. This is a bane of my life, perhaps of all people in measure. For one of countless examples: "If one chapter a day is good, five would be better. Wouldn't it? Of course it would, who could think otherwise!"
And so it's off to the races with nary a question as to why or whether, by some odd and wild chance, the assumption could be wrong.
"Patience is a virtue" I always heard, but I never believed it. My disbelief was a mix of incredulity and simple denial. "How could waiting be good in any life, on any planet, for anything, anywhere? Really, how could it? Tell me, tell me now!"
This business is at the core of life and the right answer offers keys for life well-lived. A happy life is a good life and goodness is not easy in the early going as habits are built and desires denied. Suffering is required, sometimes suffering for a long time. But it is a trade off -- suffer now and odds are you can avoid suffering later. This is also known as the ability to wait, the willingness to delay gratification.
Life is in the waiting -- one might even say life is waiting. Waiting for what? The better, the good, the joy, the eternal. Bearing with the weight of waiting now is wisdom distilled. It surrenders to reality, that more is not better, that being underlies all good doing, that eternal good will come, will come, in time.
So wait and sing and dance, for joy -- eternal joy -- comes someday and it will make the pain of waiting seem as nothing.
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