The Role of Waiting and Moving On in Life

Everyone at least has a moment in his or her life of waiting for something that is important, memorable such as a cute gift from a long-distanced friend or a special person like a family member or lover. So does Edie, she puts all out of her mind on waiting for Chris's letter, "I would get the kitchen all cleaned and then go up to the mailbox and sit in the grass, waiting. I was perfectly happy, waiting. " (How I Met My Husband, 145). There is a question rising in my head when I read that part; if I were Edie, what would happen if I didn't wait? What can be learned from waiting?

I remember reading a short Vietnamese story on the Internet called Five Steps To The Destiny. It is about a man who loves a girl with a rainbow scarf but he was too shy to express his feeling to the girl. In the end, he lost his love to another man because of five walking steps. If he decided to continue to walk five more steps forward, maybe he would meet the girl standing there waiting for him. But this is just the story from the man's view. If there were another versions of Five Steps To The Destiny, I would like the writer to talk about the girl, especially about the value of waiting for something that is desirable. If the story turned out that the girl waited for five more steps, a different fate would probably appear: the man comes in time and bravely says what's inside his heart.

I used to hear many people say: this life is too short to wait so we have to spend every minute, every second effectively. This opinion is not wrong, but there are some situations when waiting is considered as a crucial step. It is a common knowledge that a person's life is surely short in that we have only sixty or seventy years. However in those decades, he has to wait to be born, wait to be mature, wait to be successful in career and ultimately wait to be dead as normal. Some people can disagree and think that waiting is a waste of time, but everything in this life has its own time. A human needs twenty years to fully grow up; yet, no one learns how to wait in a right way. They urge their own life forward with every second without noticing that sometimes, because they were too hasty, they lost important things that should not be lost. We walk too fast over the winter but totally forget that winter is not a cold season but rather a chance for people to love one other more than anytime in a year. My brother, because of falling in love and getting married too fast, he now has to pay the price for life that his wife is not the perfect one for him. He told me that if he had had one chance to go back to the past, he would have changed everything he has done and waited until his true love appeared.

Waiting in a certain aspect isn't considered a waste of time. On the other hand, in some hopeless situations, it can be a mistake or a blindly waiting for "garbage". Do not wait for a miracle to happen in our real life. I don't mean to kill the sense of dreaming but people have to believe in one real thing, that miracle only occurs in fairy tales. There are no princes or princesses, no witches or fairies, and definitely no magic in this modern society. A person can force himself to wake up early, to eat things that he doesn't like but can't force someone to love him. For instance, in Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is really in love with a girl called Martha that what he did every night before going to bed is look at her two photographs and read the letter she sent to him. He loves her and always waits for one day that she will love him back. However, for me, love is the purest thing in the world to which nothing can compare with.

Different people will have different definitions of love; it starts from various aspects and no one is able to decide life partners for others. In the second section called Love of the story, even though it is now hopeless that Martha's love isn't for him, Cross still agrees when O’Brien asks if he can write a story about his life, and thinks that perhaps Martha will read it and come to find him. That is the moment I realize, he doesn’t hate her by herself; just the way he can’t forget her and can’t push her out of his mind makes him hate her. But it won’t last forever, he still believes in one day Martha will love him back as he always loves her. This makes me think again the meaning of waiting; although this is a hopeless love that will never be returned, we all agree that he should forget her and keep moving forward, why does Cross still believe in it? Does waiting for Martha's love soothe his feeling, blindly create an illusion of their perfect future together? However, if I were he, I will look at the reality, just like what Edie in How I Met My Husband did. She accepted the fact that there would be no more letters from Chris, so giving up instead of waiting by mailboxes day after day and year after year will be a better choice. I really appreciate what Edie has done because if I had to choose two options between moving on and waiting, I would definitely choose the first one. Morris West said in his novel The Clowns of God, "If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine. " If I don't try at least once, how can I be sure that I won't have a better chance?

People always want what they don't have and I am not an exception. Back in the time, there was a popular group of girls in my high school. They were pretty, smart and attractive to all boys at school. They went to every place together, and cared for others in the group like their own sisters. Every girl in my school, and I, all wanted to join in no matter what. I pushed all of my best friends away and every day tried to be friendly with the leader of that group. And I thought the day I became a part of it was the best day of my life and I was so proud of myself. However, that popular group was a group of totally dishonest girls. They always pretended to care for other members but when I was failing an important test that no one cared about me and they intended to kick me out. At that terrible time, only my best friend, the one I had pushed away, came to see me and gave me her shoulder to cry on. Tha`t was the moment I realized that, if people have to wait, they should wait for things that are worthy of their efforts and sometimes, the real thing is always beside you all the time, not the one you wish for.

There is a story about a stonecutter, who tries to break a big rock by beating it one hundred times, but there is still no crack on it. Surprisingly, the 101st trial makes the rock break into pieces. Some people can say that the rock broke because of the 101th trial, but in my perspective, it doesn't matter what trial makes the rock break. What important is that the stonecutter has waited for one hundred trials and kept believing that he would break it at a certain time. What would happen if the man had stopped at the 100th trial?

Waiting is not scary; the scariest part is not knowing how long we have to wait. However, if a person has a faith in his wish, one day it will become true and be more wonderful than ever. However, life is not about waiting for everything to come up, for me, moving on to take a new opportunity sometimes can be a better decision to make.