This week (actually for the last 2 weeks) in my “How to train a wild elephant” had me focusing on waiting. The challenge encouraged me to use unexpected speed bumps as opportunities to meditate. When I was waiting on something or someone, I was to use the time to be still, be centered, be mindful.
I feel like I had varying degrees of success on this one. The conversion of my website was certainly in extreme test in patience. The tedium of copy-and-pasting each of 169 posts was nothing compared to the technology hoopla. On the backend, I was pushing buttons like a mad scientist creating her Frankenstein. Bringing my baby to life took a lot of best guessing and then waiting. I had to wait to see if the change I imagined actually happened. It’s not an exaggeration to say at one point my site was just gone. I had pushed the wrong button!
I used tech support at Go Daddy…twice. They were marvelous. They patiently listened to me rattle off nonsensical descriptions of what I think happened. They paraphrased my plight in real techno jargon and then they fixed it. Only the fix had a lapse time from the not so bad, 45 minutes to an hour, to the agonizing 24-48 hours. During either process, I had to wait. And without any alternative, I did just that. I waited. Not perfectly, I texted my misery to empathic souls. But mostly, I just tried to be okay with not being in control of every aspect of my life. Sometimes, I have to wait for the internet or my life to catch up.
Another incident that sticks out for me was a brief elevator encounter. I got into an elevator with two other people. The gal moved right in front of the floor selection panel. The guy and I were behind and to the right of her. Elevator protocol calls for a person to choose their floor and step back to allow others the opportunity. This woman stood frozen with her finger an inch away from 15 for what seemed like hours. It wasn’t. It was just moments but it was the awkwardly long moments of suspended animation. Waiting a courteous beat or four, the guy and I eventually clumsily reached around her to select 17 and 20. The activity prompted her to complete her task. She seemed to finger fall into 15.
In my head, I was bubbling with snarky comments. I couldn’t wait for her exit to make fun of her to the guy from the 17th floor. After her departure, I looked at this guy with meanness on my tongue. He looked at me smiled and nodded. I couldn’t tell if he was more empathetic to the distracted gal having a bad day or me a miserable cuss ready to make fun of her. His gesture of kindness took the bitch right out of me. At 17, he turned around and said, “have a good night.” I murmured, “you too.”
Waiting is an opportunity to be mindful.
“Practicing mindfulness while waiting helps people find small moments in the day when they can bring the thread of awareness up from where it lies hidden in the complex fabrics of their lives.” – How to Train a Wild Elephant
Next week’s challenge is a media fast. The book suggests avoiding all news media, social media, and entertainment including radio, IPOD, TV, films, videos, newspapers, books, magazines, facebook, twitter, etc. Well, I can’t imagine but I’ll try to focus on the absence of these distractions.