“Don’t let someone’s timeline become our deadline. Wake up and keep going even if we aren’t seeing the full results.  Do it all over again, every day knowing exactly what you want, showing up every day until you have it and continuing to fight like hell to keep it,” Bishoi Khella. In that same clip, Khella talks about how that process is a sort of delusional patience—even when we don’t see what we are looking for, we keep going for it because we know there’s a possibility that it exists.   In general he is saying that success requires this delusional patience to keep going even if we don’t yet see the result.  I realized that he wasn’t just talking about a delusional patience, he was talking about faith.  Having faith in ourselves to keep going, that we will find the results we’re looking for if we just keep going.  That even if we don’t know the answer, we will find it if we keep going.  That we will find what works for us if we just keep going.  It may take time, but if our core tells us there is something more around the bend, we keep going knowing it will be there for us.

Life happens as it’s supposed to, on its own timeline.  We make the choices we make and we yield the results from those choices—it is the largest game of cosmic cause and effect.  Just because it doesn’t happen when we think it will doesn’t mean it won’t happen and we need to keep that in mind in regards to this delusional patience.  No one can tell us the exact moment our work will pay off.  Even if it worked like that for them, it doesn’t mean our circumstances will play out the same way—even if we do the exact same thing.  We must learn to do for the sake of doing, for the fact that it feels right and that we find some joy in it . When we get to the point where there is no joy, when we have pushed beyond our limits even for the sake of that “keep going” mentality, if there is nothing that brings us joy (if there is no longer a reason to keep going) then we must stop.  The purpose isn’t to have a delusional patience about learning to like something.  It’s to have that patience to incubate our creation while it grows.

We put enough pressure on ourselves to succeed or appear a certain way that we don’t need the added pressure of having things by a certain time.  Even I, someone who struggles immensely with time and making sure things are done according to when I’m told they should be, even I know that a deadline imposed by others doesn’t help bring the result we’re looking for any sooner.  I’m not saying that we don’t occasionally need a fire lit under us at some points, but we have to keep finding that joy in whatever it is we are waiting for.  We have to want to fight for it—we have to want to keep it, period, in order to do what we have to to keep going for it.  We have to find the value in it over and over again, knowing that it will be worth it.  The worth comes from us—not from when we get it.  I remember wanting things quickly so I could have as much time as possible with it but I’ve learned that the reality is there is no less joy in when we get something if that thing matters to us.  Faith is a test at times—that belief in a reality no one, not even ourselves can see.  Regardless of when, if we love it enough, we keep going until we find it.