Sometimes it feels like when will never arrive. This is how it goes in my head: I will write more when I’ve cleaned the house, or I’ll go out with friends when I’m not working so much, or I’ll begin a new project on the house when the weather is better. Here’s the problem with when, it’s a lie that puts our lives on hold. There is no when, there is only now. When is the lie of perfection in another guise waiting to trip us up. Sometimes it’s extremely difficult to deal with the now especially when you’re as impatient as I am for the perfect when to arrive. The perfect when is that someday when everything is easier and life is all that we want not just what we get by with. And although perfection may not exist what does exist is our own personal timing. It comes when we reach the point when we can’t go any further on our current course and suddenly make a change.

So what is it that keeps us from our when, a time when our life is filled with all the things that make us feel whole and good? This is a trick question. There is only one thing standing between us and the when where we actually live the life we love all the time rather than just a few scattered moments during the day. It’s us. We get in our own way more than anything else and sometimes it is strangely impossible to step aside. When requires us to cross over into loving all of our lives not just pieces and parts and what-ifs. There is no getting to when without the pain of separating from the person we are now in order to become the person that awaits. But to do this we have to be willing to risk everything, knowing that what we are living now may completely fall apart. That risk opens up our when. When propels us towards the biggest transformations that bring the greatest upheaval. It’s never easy getting to when.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Great Divorce. The story is about a group of newly deceased people who are shown a heaven they want just over the mountains but to get there they have to let go of what they love the most. For most of us it’s the good enough life we’ve settled for rather than pursuing what we desire deep down. To go deeper we have to enter uncharted territory. The painful process of sacrificing the known for the unknown keeps us stuck. As it turns out in the book only one person succeeds in getting to heaven and it takes tremendous effort. Everyone else stays put. The reason: change is painful and upends our lives, even good change. To risk the reality we have been living for what’s foreign and unknown is scary as hell. But for the protagonist in the story who successfully lets go a miracle happens. Facing what has held him back is what catapults him forward. This is the struggle of the everyday.

The difference between where we are now and all the whens we want to get to is the work. And there is no lying or sugar coating it, the work is hard at times, maybe most of the time, but the payoff is the life we’ve dreamed of living. It’s our authentic life. Here is the secret to when, we decide when it’s time has come. That time arrives when we can’t take one more step in the direction that doesn’t nourish us. It can be a long and arduous process, finally deciding may seem to happen in a split second but really we’re working on when all the time whether we know it or not.

So what’s stopping you from your when?

kb