Dear Instant Everything,
There’s something special about waiting.
The waiting.
The longing.
The anticipation.
Maybe it’s because we’ve been trained not to wait.
We live in a world where everything is at our fingertips.
Instant coffee.
Instant food.
Instant answers.
Instant everything.
We’ve been conditioned to hate waiting –
to despise it, even.
We’re always in a rush, always chasing the next thing,
as if time itself is something to outrun.
But what if the waiting is the gift?
What if the anticipation, the space between here and there,
the longing – that’s the real magic?
Think about it:
The night before Christmas is always better than Christmas Day.
The day before a vacation is always filled with excitement and possibility.
Even the slow, creeping drip of ketchup from the bottle has a rhythm to it that builds up the moment.
It’s in the wait where the energy lives.
It’s in the desire, the hunger for what’s coming,
that we find the best parts of ourselves.
We’ve been sold on instant, on now.
But what if the “now” is the thing we’re missing out on?
What if the wait is where all the joy lies?
The planning. The imagining. The dreaming.
You can’t rush that.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s why the journey is the gift.
It’s why we treasure the night before.
It’s why we savor the space between.
Because in the wait, we get to create the energy,
the hope, the longing –
and it’s that very energy that makes the moment so much sweeter when it finally arrives.
So this holiday season, let’s embrace the gift of waiting.
Let’s remember that anticipation is part of the journey.
The best parts of life aren’t always instant –
they’re earned, they’re felt, they’re lived, and they come in the space we often rush past.
The gift is in the wait.
And we are lucky to experience it.
~ The Radical Left