You know what you want in life, but what you want is nowhere in sight. Perhaps your purpose is undefined, your vision still unclear. Meanwhile, you know youve been persistent and youve done all that you can do. Youve pushed yourself to do more than your fair share of work, and yet things havent yield the kind of results youve been looking for. And suddenly, you feel you have no clue what to do next. Dont worry if this scenario feels all too familiar to you. Its just a "human" experience some people call the meantime.

When youre not happy about whats going on in your life, and youre not quite sure what to do or even if its the right time to do something about it, you are in the meantime. Its a state of uncertainty. You are hanging on, ready to let go, afraid to fall, not wanting to hurt yourself in case you make the situation worse. The meantime is fraught with cant dos and dont knows. Dont know why I cant go. Dont know why I should stay. Dont know where Im going. Dont know how I am going to get there, wherever there is. Confusion, reluctance, ambivalence, and paralysis are all characteristics of the meantime.

Itll do you good to know the meantime is not a bad place to be. Most times it may not feel like a whole heck of a lot of significant events are happening in the meantime, but on the contrary, so much details are in the works preparing for the next big picture of your life. So dont let the meantime get the better of you. This is the time that you have to pay even closer attention to your life so you can plant seeds in all the right places. Be fully present in every moment and just know that "miscellaneous stuff" has to happen before the "good stuff" you want can happen.

This can be as simple as one of the countless examples in my life during which a business deal didnt pan outI was confused, ran out of ideas and didnt know what to do next. So I went to the gym, chatted with an acquaintance on the way out, went home, did some work on the computer and decided to take a trip home to Malaysia to visit my family. While over there, I ran into a man (Drew) who turned out to be from Vancouver (he was in Malaysia on business). On top of that, he knew the acquaintance I spoke with while at the gym, back in Vancouver! We laughed about this "coincidence" and instantly connected and decided to stay in touch when we returned to Vancouver. (You may have already noticed everything Ive described so far sounds like a bunch of meantime "miscellaneous stuff".)

Meanwhile, my life remained pretty constantat least thats what I thought. But what was really happening was that lifes sequences of miniscule events took place from day to day slowly working out details of a bigger picture. Months later, Drew returned to Vancouver and we got a group of people together and started Global Reach Organization, a non-profit organization to help provide education and improve medical system in undeveloped and developing countries. Today, a year and a half later, our legal papers have been approved by the Canadian government and are in the process of being approved by the American government. (Our first project will be to build a kindergarten in Borneo, Malaysia.)

You see, the meantime is designed to help you realize what you know and dont know about yourself, as well as what is happening or not happening in your life. There is no prescribed period or length of time you can spend in the meantime. Youll stay in the meantime for as long as it takes to get your inner workings in order. Youll also be there as long as it takes, not only for you to get ready, but for someone else or something else to get ready. In other words, you may be ready, but the person or situation to bring it all together may not be ready. Consequently, youll be in the meantime until the person or situation youre preparing for is also prepared and ready for you. This is a good thing! The meantime is protective as well as preparatory.

The beauty of the meantime is it does not allow you to stagnate. It forces you to grow, and grow some more. In order to grow, however, you must work. It is the work were called to do on ourselves in order to experience life that makes the meantime so challenging. Thats what usually happens in the meantime. Things fall in on you and they fall apart! In the meantime, youll have an experience, or a series of experiencesearth-shattering, heart-breaking experiences that are designed to eliminate your false needs.

If you look at a finished, polished productlets use a brand new computer for exampleit looks simple, clean and perfect. But if you examine it inside out, youll see that it was once apart in pieces and all its components took some time to come together. All its mechanical parts had to be sized and positioned just right, all its little chips had to be put into place with great precision, and its many wires had to be strategically connected end to end in all the right places. And such is life in the meantime.

Lifes many little details need to work itself out to create a complete picture. In the meantime, what you need to do to help life put the details together for you is be patient, cooperate, and do your best every step of the way. Dont judge your feelings or yourself, dont label anything as good or bad, right or wrong. Just be fully present in every moment and go with the flow, until you know.

Copyright 2006 Penny Phang Enterprises Inc.