Are We There Yet?

Are we there yet? How much longer?

It’s the familiar whine coming from the back seat of any family road trip.

Or at least it used to be.

Today, I imagine most kids are too preoccupied with their iPhones or iPads to ask.

Adults still ask.

When Does the Real Part Start?

How long is this going to take?
When will it be ready?

When does the real part start?

We just want to get there. Wherever there is.

We want this part to be over so we can get on with the next part.

This morning I took a Hatha yoga class at The Yoga Collective in Venice, California.

I haven’t done much Hatha practice.

For the first 20 minutes of the class, as we did various warm-up poses, I kept wondering, when is the real part going to start?

I was looking for the intense flow part of practice. I wanted to feel like I was doing something. It wasn’t feeling like much of a “workout.”

Time and again, I reminded myself,

It has started. This is the real stuff. I am doing something.

The workout isn’t always in the body. And we don’t always have to sweat.

This is Resistance

Our desire to get to where we are going takes us away from where we are.

Any time you want to be somewhere other than where you are now, you are in resistance to where you are now.

That’s right. Resistance.

Resistance doesn’t always mean fear. Sometimes it simply means resistance.

Where you are now has important lessons for you. You must gather them so that you are prepared for where you are going when you get there.

If you get there.

Because if you don’t appreciate where you are, and take what it has to teach you, it’s likely that the time until you get to where you want to go will increase.

How to Stop the Agony of Waiting

The frustration of when will we get there? makes everything until that point feel like waiting. Nobody likes to wait.

Here’s something interesting that I’ve found:

When you learn to appreciate where you are and release your expectations around where you’re going and how long it’s going to take to get there, the agony of waiting dissipates.

It feels like you didn’t wait at all.

Because you didn’t. You were present. You had experiences. Each moment was the destination.

Experience the Journey

The point of the journey is not to get to the destination, but to experience the journey.

You’re already there. Right where you need to be.