Waiting in Bloom

Hello, this is Ditto.

We live in an era where we expect to get everything instantly.
With a single click, the world's knowledge pours out, and ordered goods arrive at our doorstep by dawn the next day. Perhaps that is why we easily become anxious and restless when things do not progress at the speed we desire. However, nature's clock never rushes.

For an astringent persimmon to become a sweet, ripe hongsi, it needs time to
silently endure the cold winds and frost.
The same goes for the time it takes for a seed to break through the dark soil and bloom into a flower.

In Letters to a Young Poet, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke
advises a restless young soul as follows:

"Everything is born only after a period of gestation.
Let every impression, every seed of emotion come to completion entirely within yourself, in the dark,
in the inexpressible unconscious.
And wait with deep humility and patience for a new, clear truth to be born
and descend upon you."

Waiting is by no means a time of standstill.
Though it may appear still on the outside, it is a time of fierce ripening on the inside.
It is much like how the bare branches of a winter tree, waiting for spring,
already flow with a fervent vitality ready to push forth green leaves.

Impatience makes us pluck unripe fruit, but
patience places the most fragrant fruit in our hands.
What are you waiting for right now?
Are you, perhaps, blaming yourself, considering this time of waiting as 'wasted time'?

In our lives, too, the stop signal sometimes turns on.
When that happens, rather than forcing your speed to rush through the intersection,
how about willingly accepting that red light as a comma?

It is okay to arrive a little late.
For all precious things come to us after a sufficient wait.
I am cheering for your today, which is ripening at your own pace.

This was Ditto.