“Don’t answer ‘anything’.  Life’s real. It’s made up of little things; minutes, hours, naps, errands, routine, and it has to be enough.”….Barney’s Version

In the movie, Barney’s Version, his soon-to-be wife, Miriam gives this blunt response to Barney’s comment,  ‘I would do anything for you.’  I love her answer.  It is such a reminder that life is a process, proceeding while we wait for it to happen.  This is not a new idea but it might be a revelation of great impact.  So what in this simple answer has it have an importance worth heeding?

I think it is what sits behind each simple factor noted – behind the ‘little things; the minutes, hours, naps, errands, routine’.  These are the markers of a life through days, weeks, months and years that eventually carry us from childhood to youth to adulthood to elder years to passing.  Our life proceeds through these thousands of menial tasks, wakes and sleeps, and circumstances we experience.  Through these simple movements, we proceed perfectly through the process of time.  Logically speaking, we know this and pretty much accept its inevitability.

But what about the timing of our individual process?  Are we as willing to see the timing of that process as perfect?  Do we appreciate the rhythm of our own development and allow process to emerge what is next?  Do we have equal patience for breakdown and disintegration, creation and construction?  Can we accept the timing that our innate wisdom demands?  To fully give ourselves over to our own process, what would have to be true?

The shift required is itself a process.  It cannot be instantaneous.  It involves a change of context and a relaxing of the rules we’ve set up for ourselves.  Goals and objectives have to make room for desire and intention.  We would have to ask and explore Miriam’s initial question to Barney, ‘How can I trust you?’

What is the answer you are waiting to hear?