A Series of Observations

Hurry up and wait…have you ever heard that before? I believe it’s typically used within the theater and film space, maybe even military, but it is a phrase that has been roaming around my mind for a while now.

Life is such a paradox in that way, too often young adults like myself feel the consistent pressure to move more quickly through life’s milestones. It’s something we have been taught to do through the rise of social media and the comparative culture that accompanies it. It’s something we were taught to do from the generations that raised us, whose youth was spent during a time when expectations and standards were vastly different from what we know now.

We spend a lot of time moving in certain directions, sometimes without really looking where we are going, and then wait an awful long time for good things to happen to us. What could be worse, is that we often rush toward goals that we aren’t sure that we want, because we don’t take the time to interrupt the steady flow of life to evaluate. Above all, we are denied the pleasure of enjoying the journey along the way.

I think the hurry up and wait mentality, the unconscious teaching, is dangerous and misleading. It takes us out of our ability to be present and we are eternally disappointed when we don’t reach the levels or places we thought we would be, especially in the timeframe we believed it was meant to be achieved.

I’ll use myself as an example.

In the first chapter of Zoom Out, I had revealed that as a child I felt like I was destined to be an adult. I also talked about why I did my educational journey the way I did, but what you might not remember is that it should have taken five or six years to complete. Yet my first generation, type A, eldest daughter self, did it all in four. It was grueling and wildly rewarding; I did all of that during the beginning and worst parts of a global pandemic, juggling my growing adulthood with an upside-down world, limited relationships, and limited resources.

To me, flying through school was not just the economical and logical decision, but also the solution to avoiding the loss of a lot of extra time I could be spending in my real life. In truth, it didn’t work. I’m still very proud of what I accomplished, but the point is that I missed out on so much more because of it.

I hurried through those years of college only to still be waiting for my career to start, even though I graduated three years ago now.

I hurried through those years alone only to still find the time to get heartbroken…a few times.

I hurried through those years and only talk to three friends regularly that I made during that time, when I could have taken the time to bond with so many more.

I hurried, and I hurried, and I hurried…and all I have done since is wait.

I can’t even say I wasn’t warned. My mother, the saint she is, tried to talk to me many times about slowing down and Zooming Out. Unfortunately for her and sometimes myself, I can be very set in my decisions once I’ve made up my mind.

This isn’t a tale of regret either, though I certainly could have done many things differently. I wouldn’t change a thing, because if I had slowed down, I wouldn’t have met my first adult love. If I had slowed down, I very likely would have missed out on the opportunities I did take during that time.

How can I wish that to be different?

Instead, I use it as a cautionary tale for myself.

Life requires us to be flexible with our pacing, sometimes we are in a period of calm and ease, others require us to hone in on our goals more deeply and push through.

Regardless of how fast we are required to move, I never want us to get to the point of endless waiting.

In this situation, Zooming Out would save us a lot of time and regret in the long run. In a previous chapter we discussed how to set our goals and how to emotionally prepare ourselves for the inevitable changes that will come. Those lessons will prepare us for this as well.

If we know what our goals are and believe in them wholeheartedly, we are prepared to face the challenges, we can move with greater ease and allow ourselves to be present along the way.

That is the most important lesson here. Past versions of ourselves are gone, the future does not exist yet, so we might as well take the time to be with who we are now.

Whether or not we are hurrying along, let’s never wait to be exactly who we are.