Wish Wednesday ~ good things take time

Something we fail to realize is how long it may take for wishes to come true. We live fast paced lives and expect instant gratification, but nature’s clock is slow and steady. Look at the plants and the trees, how long it takes for them to grow, but how magnificent they eventually become.

People will tell you that you need to give up on a dream that doesn’t come to fruition after more than a couple years. People will say you need to give up, lose your patience, run away and try something else. And sometimes we do reach dead ends that require turning around, but all too often we quit before we reach our desires. You will know the difference between what is not meant for you verses what requires a little more patience and effort.

In nature, several years is like the blink of an eye. But in modern society, that seems like eternity. We live in a world of microwave meals, where you can have dinner ready in five minutes. Do you remember how slow the internet used to be? Remember when waiting five minutes for a page to load was normal? Now, if we click on something that takes more than ten seconds to load, we X it out immediately and give up.

Time is really an illusion that can never be measured completely. Even to this day, we still have leap years to deal with the imbalance of measurement. Time is out of our hands. It’s true that time is limited, but we ironically waste time when we fight against it.

In the past, in my younger years, I made the mistake of rushing forward too quickly just because I felt so anxious about the future. It’s nice to feel like you have a plan, but that control is simply an illusion. Life throws us so many surprises that you can’t predict. So often we rush forward just because we have anxiety about the future.

Easy come and easy go. A stable foundation means that you won’t crash and burn. When you take your time, you know that it will last. That’s how you know that you truly want it, and that it’s meant for you. You have to go through a lot of healing and cleansing, letting go of the past, in order to reach somewhere new. Otherwise you will be full of doubt and land somewhere you aren’t meant to be.

We are conditioned to expect immediate rewards, especially with smartphones and the internet. We have learned to expect everything with the push of a button. We are blind to our progress because we focus more on our failures than our successes. We don’t give ourselves enough credit for how far we’ve come.

For example, I started this blog four years ago, in 2016. It took me this long to really commit myself to blogging, and to reach a steady audience and this much positive feedback. If I started out expecting the same views and likes I get to this day, that would’ve been a setup for failure — I would’ve become so frustrated and quit. And if I committed myself right away then I would’ve burnt out without realizing how much blogging makes me happy. It has been a journey, full of thoughts of quitting, taking many breaks, going back and forth — but here I am today ready to go all the way. I wouldn’t have rushed it if I could start all over again, I think it was absolutely necessary for me to go through the motions of what it means to be dedicated.

Now go back even further, I created my very first blog when I was only ten years old. I ended up quitting, then coming back, then quitting again, starting over and over so many times. And that’s no excuse for giving up, that’s all the reason for continuing to try! It proves that I can bounce back, that with each comeback I grow stronger. What if I counted my failures, and gave up after a certain amount? What if I tried to place a statistic on a creative journey? Dreams come from imagination, and your imagination has no measurement, no correct amount of attempts, no limit!

When people first told me they enjoyed my writing, it felt great, but at the same time it really scared me. Suddenly I felt great pressure to keep up with everyone’s expectations. With more eyes on me, I worried more about judgment. When I began receiving steady views on this WordPress blog, it was scary, even though it was exactly what I’d hoped for deep down. But the more I worked through my fears, the more I allowed myself to enjoy success. I have written before about how success is scarier than failure. Success and fulfillment is a long journey full of learning how to love yourself and accept happiness.

So many people give up on their wishes just because it took longer than expected. But it’s never too late, for as long as you’re alive. If you look at the bigger picture then you understand how the ups and downs were necessary, how much progress you have truly made. The beginning is the longest part. Once you start to truly feel your dream, believe you deserve it on a soul level (not just your ego saying “I want this,” but your deep subconscious saying “this is meant for me.“) then that’s when things will pick up and move much faster.

The hardest part is the beginning. You plant a seed. You have to keep watering it and watching it until it sprouts. And caring for something that you can’t see with the naked eye requires the highest amount of faith. And the next thing you know, you have a beautiful garden!

Your concept of time is completely distorted. The airplane drives before it takes off in the air. The car slowly backs out of the driveway before it speeds down the highway. And the star explodes thousands of years before we can see it.

So don’t listen to people who discourage you, especially your own mind discouraging you. If it’s a dead end, then you know. But if you’ve had moments of hope, that is the universe telling you to keep holding on a bit longer, keep pushing, soon enough it will take off and you’ll be flying!