Waiting Until I Feel Ready Again

The thing you are waiting for is the wanting.

Not time. You have had evenings. Not money, in most cases, and not skill, and not permission from anybody.

What you have been waiting for is the return of the feeling you had at the start, when the whole thing was interesting and the picture of it finished was vivid and you would have happily done it on a Tuesday night for no reason.

That feeling has not come back. It has been eleven months.

And here is the difficult part, which is worth saying kindly and saying plainly. It is not coming back on its own.

Enthusiasm at the start of a project is a real and good thing and it is also a one time issue. It arrives with the idea and it leaves with the novelty, and it does not have a second cycle, and everybody privately believes theirs is coming back.

So a person can wait for it for years. There is no penalty for waiting. Nothing happens. That is precisely the problem.

You are able to do a thing you do not feel like doing, and waiting for the wanting has never once been the same as waiting for the right time.

He that observeth the wind

There is a line in Ecclesiastes about farming that is really about conditions, and it is unusually blunt.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. (Ecclesiastes 11:4, King James Version)

He that observeth the wind shall not sow.

The picture is a man standing at the edge of a field checking whether today is a good day. And he is not lazy. He is being careful, and the wind genuinely does matter, and every one of his assessments may be perfectly accurate.

And the verse simply reports the outcome. He does not sow. Not because he decided against it. Because the checking never ends.

You have been checking the conditions rather than refusing the work, and observing the wind has never once been the same thing as being unwilling. Ecclesiastes 11:4 names the outcome without naming a fault in the man, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can tell carefulness apart from avoidance.

And notice that the verse does not promise good weather. It does not say sow anyway and the conditions will be fine. It does not say anything about the harvest at all in that clause.

It simply removes waiting from the list of strategies. What you do with that is yours.

You were never promised the right conditions, and the absence of a promise about the weather has never once been a reason to stay at the edge of the field. The Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody sowing into an ordinary uncertain day, and the written word declines to say whether the wind will drop.

The wanting arrives afterward, if at all

So here is the practical claim, and it is the only real content in this article.

For the first project in a person life, motivation comes first and the work follows. For every project after the novelty has gone, the order reverses. The work comes first, and if anything comes after it, it comes after it.

Nobody teaches that. Everybody learns it late.

You have been running the right order for a different kind of job, and the sequence that worked at the start has never once been the sequence that works in the middle. Ecclesiastes 11:4 goes straight at the waiting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a person the order they are actually in.

And here is the second thing, which takes a weight off rather than adding one.

You do not have to want to. That is not a requirement anywhere. The work does not check. Twelve minutes done while thoroughly not wanting to is twelve minutes of the same work as twelve minutes done gladly.

The project cannot tell. That sounds almost too simple to be worth saying and it is the thing that unlocks this row.

You are able to do work that you do not want to do, and unwillingness has never once made a piece of work count for less. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in twelve reluctant minutes, and Ecclesiastes 11:4 puts sowing and observing the wind directly against each other.

And one more, because this must not turn into a lecture about willpower. There is no virtue being demanded here.

You were never being asked to be more disciplined, and doing one small thing badly and reluctantly has never once been a demand for character. Ecclesiastes 11:4 speaks about a field and a wind rather than about a person's worth, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps this practical instead of moral.

Twelve minutes, while not wanting to

Here is the assignment and the instruction is unusual.

Do twelve minutes on the project tonight while not wanting to.

Not after talking yourself into it. Not after getting in the mood. Not after a song or a coffee or a conversation about it. While not wanting to, in that exact state, starting from where you are sitting right now.

You have twelve minutes available in the state you are actually in, and the work has never once asked what mood anybody brought to it. Ecclesiastes 11:4 sends somebody out to sow without waiting on the wind, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there for the whole twelve minutes.

Twelve is a deliberate number. It is long enough to be real work and short enough that no part of you can construct an argument against it.

And here is the second half of the instruction, which is the part people skip. Notice that you did not want to the whole way through.

Not so you can be proud of it. So that you find out, once, that the wanting was never load bearing. Most people spend a year waiting for a feeling that they will discover, in twelve minutes, they never needed.

Then stop. Do not carry on because it got easier. Stop at twelve.