Last Saturday I was on the train heading back home when I witnessed something very revealing. The interesting thing about the incident was not so much that it was a revelation about the person or people involved but rather about me. I was sitting down playing a game on my cell phone when a cry across from me caught my attention and made me look up. It was the cry of a little boy about four years old and he was busy struggling with his father. His older sister who was seated right next to her father and he was on his father’s lap but he was stretching and wiggling and tossing and turning for reasons nobody knew.
His father, the patient man that he is, kept asking him what he wanted but he did not verbalize anything. All he did was squirm and make noises while his dad struggled to keep him stable on his lap. I was smiling this whole time because this was so cute to me. I mean, I thought the way his father was handling the situation was so good. He was not getting angry or impatient, and he was not spewing threats and cursing up a storm he just gently kept asking his young son what he wanted.
Finally, by accident or divine intention the struggle made this little boy land on the empty or vacant seat next to his father and suddenly and almost immediately he stopped crying. It was so almost hilarious because that was what he wanted - He just wanted to sit down on the seat next to his father. His father giggled while he asked, “so that’s what you wanted?” and I also laughed a little. All the struggling and moving around just because he wanted to sit on the hard train seat.
Why couldn’t he verbalize his desires, what was so difficult about saying he wanted to sit down when his father repeatedly asked him what he wanted? A part of me wanted to simply say that was his four year old way of communicating but another part knowing me imagined it was something else that made him think verbalizing it wasn’t the best way to go either because it seemed trivial and hence embarrassing or that he was unsure of what he wanted.
To develop the latter a bit, I would say that I am probably one of the most indecisive people anyone could encounter. If you want to stump me with a question, instead of asking about obscured facts, just ask me what I want and I would probably give you an “I don’t know”. Interestingly, not knowing what I want doesn’t mean that I don’t feel it when I get it. Like that little boy, when something that I want happens to me it totally silences my tantrums just as immediately. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen often but I have learned to be thankful and content when it does.
Frankly, I feel like most things have happened to me not because I went chasing after them but rather because I so happened to have listened and heard the right thing, been in the right place and just had been the right person to do it. I have walked into many things that I erstwhile would never have imagined I would encounter. The experience often makes me a lot passive when it comes to taking an active stand but at the same time equips me with the serenity to accept that there is much I have little control over.
It is great to plan and I do plan but I do it in the most general way leaving the specific details enough room for adjustments. If I don’t leave that room then I am assuming that I have the perfect plan, and the perfect plan means I have considered all possible permutations which on this earth of ours is quite difficult to achieve. The bottom line is I accept that I can’t account for all possibilities in my plans and that there is divine providence in this life.
As I grow, I see that there is value in what advisors are taught to impart into young adults, that indeed it is ok if you do not know what you want in life by way of a career or major and so forth. I will take it a step further and say that it is ok if you don’t know what you want period for as long as your motives are considerate and pure and without intentions for harm to others and the world we live in, there is a place for you and surely as the sun rises you will find your place in this world.
Sometime, it doesn’t behoove to go to chase what we want, especially if you are like me and you don’t even know what you want. Rather, what we want finds us in time and when it does it is a beautiful thing. It finally feels like a piece of the puzzle fits it feels like the perfect dance that you alone know the steps to and the glow is totally yours. If only we knew the secrets of time there will be so little that we would go chasing when they are all intricately woven together in the design of life.
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