WHEN I was still a little boy, I dreamed of going to the United States. Watching those Hollywood films had stirred me to go the land of milk and honey. “That’s impossible,” my friends told me when I was still in high school.
But their reactions did not stop from dreaming. The Bible states: “What is impossible to man is possible to Him.” I leaned on this promise. Every night, before I slept, I always pray that my dream would be realized.
But the more I wanted to go, the more it was out of my reach. So, I decided to let it go. I didn’t want it to become my obsession in life. After all, life is more than dreams. Life is real and dreams are not.
After that, my life seemed easier. I was able to focus my energy on other things and my career as a journalist. I worked as information officer of a non-governmental organization based in my hometown and simultaneously wrote for some national dailies and an international news dispatch.
I had already forgotten my childhood dream when one day I received an e-mail asking me if I was interested to co-author a paper on water and population for the Environmental Change and Security Project of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
I was totally surprised. The invitation was unexpected. I had harvested almost all journalism awards before then but I didn’t think my record was not considered. Actually, it was Don Hinrichsen – one of America’s noted environmental journalists – who recommended my name to be his co-author. Editor Jennifer Kaczor immediately wrote an invitation.
I did not accept the invitation immediately. I prayed. I talked with my family and my friends. I scouted for answers from them. Was the invitation God-given? Was it the answer for my prayers when I was still a little boy?
“Are you sure you can do it?” Jeff Palmer, the director of the organization I worked with, inquired. I took his answer as a challenge and God’s way of saying, “Go ahead!” I did!
It took more than two decades before God answered my prayers. But it was worth it. He prepared everything for me. When I visited Don in 2000 in his office at the UN Population Fund in New York City to write the draft paper, it went smoothly. In 2002, the final paper was presented at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C.
Today, I know what American prolific author Joseph Campbell mean when he said, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Nobel Peace Prize winner Woodrow T. Wilson adds: “All things come to him who waits – provided he knows what he is waiting for.”
Life is a waiting game. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it well: “All things come round to him who will but wait.” Cardinal J. Newman said this: “Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.”
Everyone wait – no one is spared. In waiting, we have to form a line and wait for our turn – especially when you want to watch a movie, when you want to buy something in the mall, or when you you’re your birth certificate authenticated. Even when you want to get your visa, you have to join a queue.
Geoffrey Chaucer said: “Time and tide wait for no man.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez surmised: “He who awaits much can expect little.” American president Dwight D. Eisenhower forwarded this idea: “Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
But Anthony Robbins, an American advisor to leaders, pointed out: “You must know that in any moment a decision you make can change the course of your life forever: the very next person stand behind in line or sit next to on an airplane, the very next phone call you make or receive, the very next movie you see or book you read or page you turn could be the one single thing that causes the floodgates to open, and all of the things that you’ve been waiting for to fall into place.”
But don’t just wait – do something. Remember Juan Tamad who waited for the guava to fall into his mouth? He could have climbed and took the guava for himself. French writer Jules Renard reminds: “Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.”
But there are people who don’t believe in waiting. Ralph Waldo Emerson asked: “How much of human life is lost in waiting?” Robert Anthony considers waiting as a trap. He explains: “There will always be reasons to wait. The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.”
On waiting, the Bible states: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
The passage reminds me of this anecdote. A family of turtles – Father Turtle, Mother Turtle, and Junior Turtle – went on a picnic. They did not move very fast, so it took them three years to get to the picnic grounds. They got all the food unpacked from the picnic basket and suddenly realized that they left the ketchup at home.
Mother Turtle asked Junior Turtle if he would run home and get the ketchup. Junior Turtle did not want to do it; he was afraid that his parents would start eating without him. His dad and mom promised that they would not begin their picnic until Junior returned from home with the ketchup.
Father Turtle and Mother Turtle waited for Junior Turtle. They waited for years. Five years passed and no sign of Junior. They waited some more. Nine years passed, and they could wait no longer. They had to eat something. Each one took a bite.
As soon as Father Turtle and Mother Turtle took their first bite, Junior Turtle appeared from behind a bush and screamed, “I knew you would start eating without me… I’m not going!”
“He that waits upon fortune,” Benjamin Franklin decried, “is never sure of a dinner.”
