The Linear Life

You know how people say “change is hard!”? I’ve never understood that statement as I tend to thrive on change.

I enjoy change so much that when things stay the same for too long I become restless and look for something in my life I can change… whether it needs it or not.

What I find hard is when the space of time between when a decision to change has been made and the change actually takes effect is longer than I believe it should be.

Lately I’ve been experiencing a lot of those “delayed change events” and the thing these events are teaching me is that my patience is not at the level I once believed it to be.

When I stand in the moment and dissect all of the parts of current events that need to be moving but are not yet, and when I look to the future and cannot discern where a particular current event, that is apparently stalled, is supposed to go I become frustrated and impatient at the apparent lack of progress. “Can’t we just move on already?! I’m done with this!” are all too often my thoughts.

Yet when I stand still and stand back from the events and engage my emuna I’m blown away at the speed at which life is changing. To look back a week, a month, a year ago in comparison to today and the changes are dramatic and, in some cases, life path altering.

I wonder how the two realities can co-exist. How can I see proof of how fast things are moving and yet be impatient because nothing seems to be moving at all? Which reality is real?

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the natural ebb and flow of life. Hashem has, in His infinite wisdom, imbued all of creation with natural cycles – times of action and times of rest, times of exertion and times of replenishment, times to grow and times to fallow.

In today’s world there is the ability to almost fully remove oneself from this natural cycle, G-d forbid! We can be connected to work, media, and people 24/7. Weather, unless extreme, has almost no effect on most of our daily lives and schedules. The food we want to eat can be obtained year round regardless of season, shipped in from other climates or force grown in hothouses. Pick any area of life and humans have found a way to shortcut it to be as linear as possible.

It is possible, although obviously not advisable, to live these very linear lives. Lives tailored to productivity, to increasing wealth, to decreasing discomfort, to be virtually unaffected, G-d forbid, by the natural cycles that Hashem gave us to live our lives to the fullest. This type of linear living and thinking leads to a lack of patience. A lack of patience leads to creating even more systems and processes to make one’s life even more linear… more streamline – to eliminate the waiting, to achieve more. A linear life is punctuated with toe-tapping impatience and increasing frustration. The reality, however, is that a linear life lacks depth. Achievements are shallow and lack meaning – consider something as simple as a the taste of a hot house tomato picked green and forced to ripen vs. a vine ripened, sun warmed tomato picked and eaten fresh and you’ll picture what I’m meaning.

It is this concept of linear thinking that answers my questions – how can the two realities of “nothing” is happening and yet looking back one can see how changes are happening at incredible speed. When I look back I can see the natural ebb and flow of life and how, through that perfect system, change took place as it should…despite my linear thinking and actions. My view of current events is clouded by this linear thinking. I’m spending an exorbitant amount of time trying to streamline the process, to eliminate waiting, to move quickly through areas of growth.

However, if I allow myself to move into the natural cycle I find that the downs, the slow times, the times that require patience with myself, with others, and with the process, is exactly what is required to move forward, to change, at the most rapid pace possible.

My own impatience, my desire to achieve, to make a change, in the shortest time possible is what is causing the apparent delay in the first place.

I read a comment recently – the woman captioned a photograph of wild flowers “I don’t think there is such a thing as late or early blooming – things take as long as they take in this life.”

Things take as long as they take – Hashem has shown me that my desires and efforts should be punctuated with patience. Patience for the process so that I can move with the rhythm He created for me to live my life to the fullest. 

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Jennifer invites you to participate in a regularly held Noahide on-line study group that reviews the garden series books of Rabbi Arush. You can contact her at jenniferjwoodward@gmail.com for dates and times.