“When you’re young, you always feel that life hasn’t yet begun — that “life” is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays — whenever. But then suddenly you’re old and the scheduled life didn’t arrive. You find yourself asking, ‘Well then, exactly what was it I was having — that interlude — the scrambly madness — all that time I had before?”
- Douglas Coupland
I have lived in this interlude. I keep revisiting it from time to time in different contexts. It could be in working a job that might be treated as a placeholder until what we really want comes along. It could be a relationship that might be treated as a placeholder until what will sweep us off our feet comes along. It could be a house, a city, a project, an idea, anything.
The interlude is a prison.
It is easy to get sucked in and hard to come out.
Living in the interlude is at best a coping mechanism. When we feel that the situation we are in isn't ideal, but if we stick it out, eventually something better will come along, then we are using it as a coping mechanism.
The only way something better comes along is when we do our best with what we have right now. Think of it as a video game. We only get to the next level when we have done our best to cross this level. We don't get to the next level just because we have hung around playing this level for a while.
When you find yourself in the interlude for too long, take a leap instead. Embrace your position. And do your best. Place yourself on the path to something better and start marching.
If you just hang around hoping for better, you will soon notice that you are building a prison around you that you can't get out of.
CONVERSATION