Year of the Waiter | PASSAGES :004
"Do you have the patience to wait?"
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
-Tao Te Ching 15
Waiting in Two Ways
I learned how to be a waiter this year.
In both senses of the word.
From April through August I had the opportunity to serve as the taproom manager for one of my brother Dan’s Good City Brewing locations. It was an amazing experience! Back in high school I was a dishwasher and pizza delivery guy, but neither restaurant ever let me wait tables. This time I got to do the whole thing—I poured beers and delivered food and bussed tables for basketball game attendees, concert goers, families on vacation, people on business trips, regulars, and countless others.
(I’ve got lots of stories to tell about how hard so many people work in the restaurant industry, and dirt about which customers tend to be THE WORST, but these will have to wait for another day.)
I also was a waiter in that I’ve been waiting since at least November 2022, when I signed a book deal with St. Martin’s Essentials, to release my first book The Way Home into the world (arriving Feb 20, 2024 - Pre-order now!).
Now, I should say more about this waiting… I wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing until this book comes out. I grew my mediation coaching business in Milwaukee and beyond. I facilitated over a dozen wellbeing workshops for different companies and businesses. I had the privilege of accompanying eight beautiful humans as a hospice volunteer. And I co-wrote a hilarious TV pilot screenplay that my friend/co-creator will be working to get out into the world this year (more on this later!).
But still, behind all of this I’ve been waiting. Waiting how? Waiting on what? Well, when I lost my job in early 2022, Cherie and I knew it meant that it was time for us to take a risk. It was time for me to do something I had been wanting to do for a long time—to dive fully into a season of creating. So that’s what I did. I finished the manuscript of my book and (rebooted) my meditation coaching practice, but after a number of months I was ready to start looking for a job at the end of 2022. But then a publisher picked up my book. Which meant Cherie and I reassessed our plan. It extended things for us... We needed to keep going. To keep risking. To keep leaning into the unknown. At least, we decided, until the book is launched into the world!
So this is where the waiting comes in for me. It’s not that I’m waiting with an expectation for this book to sell a million copies or quickly solve my questions about work and income and financial stability. That would be naive, especially in today’s publishing landscape and extra especially for a first-time author with a tiny platform. It’s that for over a year, I’ve been waiting for something to happen, something to arrive. Waiting for an event that has a clear before and after. Waiting for a date circled on the calendar, knowing that, afterwards, important decisions will need to be made and significant changes will come.
Waiting has been all sorts of things. It has been hard and scary and agonizingly long—though not as brutal as waiting a few weeks to get your braces off, as I’m sure my 15 year-old daughter insist!
But waiting has also been wonderful. Delightfully brief, filled with surprises (managing a taproom!?), and abounding with the gifts of space and stillness and presence. It’s been really… good. And I can tell that if I let continue, the waiting will do exactly what it needs to do, just like the Tao Te Ching talks about…
The mud will settle.
The water will become clearer.
And if I keep waiting the right action will arise by itself.
…What will that action be, I wonder!
A Conversation with the Universe, Inspired by Waiting
“Show me how this next year will unfold,” I said to the Universe.
“And what would that do? How would that help?” the Universe asked me.
“Well, it would help me know what to do now. It would help me make the most of this season and keep me from wasting my time. I could get a head start on some things.”
“If there were something that you needed to do right now, then wouldn’t I just let you know?” the Universe asked
“I suppose you would,” I said.
“And, in fact, you are doing exactly what you need to do right now,” the Universe said.
“I am? What is that?” I asked. “Please remind me. I can’t really tell.”
“Wait.”
“But why do I need to wait?”
“Because there are some discoveries you can only make when you wait. Waiting has lessons to teach you. About being present. About your intuition. And waiting prepares you for what is to come.”