Transcript
Hi everyone, welcome back to another podcast. Today’s topic, this is Episode #90. The title is “The in between. How should I live my life?” You’re not quite there yet, but you’re striving towards the goal or the goalpost that you’re trying to move the needle. Well, according to the definition of the in between, it says situated somewhere between two extremes or recognized categories.
Intermediate is an intermediate thing. It’s not quite there yet. As I said earlier, it’s kind of like you’re not small and you’re not large and your medium per se. It is about in-the-waiting period.
So, how should we tackle our lives and how can we approach life where we’re actually in between?
You’re trying to create something maybe posting videos, creating podcast every week, and you’re trying so hard to reach the goalpost.
However, it seems as though it’s not really getting there yet. you have some views but quite not reached to a point where YouTube is going to give you the monetary or the or monetize your channel rather. So these are the in-betweens that many people are just wondering about?
How do we navigate this kind of life when we’re just waiting for something to happen?
And I really think it’s just in the grand scheme of things is just to show up regularly. That’s all you can do about it. I mean, you’re waiting in between. Might as well show up and always do the best that you can because guess what?
1. Show up anyway
No matter what happens, whether you have achieved something or have seen the result that you’re waiting for, all you have to do is do the best that you can. Do the things that you have to do in the morning, whatever that might be. Drink a cup of coffee. Perhaps, brush your teeth, hopefully before you do that. Take showers. I mean, the small incremental steps matter because they all add up, you know. You know exactly when they’re compound interest, it starts with a small thing and it’s just those small things that will eventually going to have this big impact in the future.
Many people always think that if I can wait for the perfect moment I am going to just be happy start when I’m ready. We all been there. I’ve done that too many times before. Before I could press record or be out there and to be foolish to look at myself in the video for the first time and I look awful based on my observation and I waited and I waited for the perfect timing. I waited for the perfect hair or I could lose the weight.
2. Do not be crippled by analysis paralysis
But actually in those waiting moments, the in between decision making sometimes the in between of questioning ourselves should we do it? Should I start now? These are crippling sometimes because it will paralyze our decision-m eventually and we will talk ourselves out of it. And the in between is usually when you’re just going to have all of the cons and the pros and weighing between maybe if I should ask five people or maybe I should just ask my mom or my sisters.
And the in between is about again it’s about waking up at night and spending hours pondering or considering a decision that you have been wanting to do. So, again these are the things that you can do on a daily basis. the daily routine that seems mundane but also important in the long run.
According to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, if I am pronouncing his last name right, he said "The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive but in finding something to live for."
3. Find something to live for
So that is the key according to Dostoyevsky, if I am pronouncing his last name right, he said the mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive but in finding something to live for and that you have to find something to live for while waiting in between because as I said if you have nothing to live for then you are most likely going to drag your feet out of your bed and you’re not going to be able to be motivated because as I said motivation is one thing and another thing is discipline.
So my next point is have something to live for and because according to Mark Twain it says the two most important days in life are the day you’re born and the day you discover the reason why and I think I have done a podcast before that have alluded to this talk that I ask you the question have you even bother asking the question why are you here?
The two most important days in life are the day you’re born
Mark Twain
and the day you discover the reason why.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
and the day you discover the reason why.
Mark Twain
What is your purpose? Did God just put you in this earth for no apparent reason? Are you just a fly on the wall?
Even a fly has a reason, right? Because a fly at least it will tell you that your place is infested or it’s defunct of some smell that you need to clean up around you. And so you need to have a reason why while waiting in between. Nobody likes to wait in between. Everybody wants to get to the goalpost. Everyone to see the result.
However, in the in between, perhaps this is the wilderness season that you need to rest while waiting for whatever it is that you’re waiting for.
Glennavelle
It’s like waiting for your wedding day to come. If you have been married before, maybe two or three times, you know exactly the anticipation. It is the waiting that seems as though hard to resist that you couldn’t wait for that day to arrive. So you are counting the hours, counting down the days and the months until your wedding finally arrived. And then when the wedding arrived, everything somehow went smoothly and that time is so quick.
Fast forward, next thing you know, you’ve been married for probably 10 years. Mine is 14 to 15 in the making. However, the in between the anticipation is actually many people are very fidgeting and couldn’t wait for that day to come. But then on that day to come when it’s all over and then what you’re still going to wait for another in between which is maybe buying a house or having family which is having children and it’s unending chase really of achieving something moving the goalposts and we’re never satisfied aren’t we? Nothing is enough apparently.
Here are three takeaways:
So in the resting period we can also do something while waiting the in between.
- Read a book journaling perhaps reflecting upon your life while waiting in between.
- Maybe you’ve been wanting to lose the weight and you could never shed the pounds or maybe you have been wanting to take the book to travel somewhere else. If you cannot afford it right now, maybe you should just look around your local restaurants if that’s the farthest you can go.
- Go to a garden that’s free.
- Make love.
- Create, invent, redecorate.
Just allow your imagination and takes its course. While waiting in between, you can also pray, meditate, or simply being still. I have read five books this year and then you cannot really summarize of what you just read. The same thing with watching a movie because we’re so good at rushing and getting to the ending like me sometimes I have no patience watching the telli series or soap opera because I want to get to the ending because sometimes for me there are seasons that are just redundant and I don’t have the patience for it. I rather read a book.
4. Pace yourself
And so that is the whole point of the in between. It is this the thing that you just have to wait and not really rush through it. And I know that many people, especially today, we’re so distracted with cell phones when we get into a place, we snapshot, we take pictures that sometimes we don’t really appreciate all the things that are around us that we get through the day. We rush through it, excuse me, and then we don’t understand why we are so fatigued, overwhelmed, stressed out.
I actually done my last vlog. It is in my other channel, Glennevelle’s Appetite. I will try to link that down below because this one is particularly both the Soulish Femme is the same on my channel. I have bought this mug from this sweet and flowers something like that is the name. If I have butchered it I apologize you can go look at it. It is a mug that says be still and know that I am God.
I purchased that mug to remind myself that in the in between phases of our lives sometimes that’s all we have to do is be still and know that there is a God who is actually been orchestrating the whole thing about your life because our timetable is not God’s timetable.
Sometimes we think that as much as we want to rush and get to the next whatever it is, next goal, next ambition, next endeavor, we think we can go through it without going through the process. However, many do people get take the shortcuts, but eventually they’ll ended up disappointed because when we when they got there, it’s not actually what they have expected.
And I’ve actually been watching this two couple. I’m not going to name names. I’ve been following them on and off on YouTube. I think they are couple that has started very early. They had a company that they have built together. They’ve been married for 15 to 16 years. They have married at a young age. And recently, as I have been watching on YouTube, I realized that they got a divorce.
And mind you, they had everything. You would have thought they have created two businesses. They started a family. They could travel places. And you can say that they were the ideal couple looking in and looking out in. Actually, you may wonder to yourself, what else is missing that the woman suddenly decided to get a divorce? Perhaps it’s not all what’s crack up to be, isn’t it? Maybe because after the achieving, striving, and all the accumulating, we are still not happy.
5. Be Content
Because after all, when you are not content with the in between, you’re never going to be satisfied. No matter how much you have in the bank, no matter how successful you you are on the paper and whatever the world might expect you to look as successful, but within yourself when you’re not really sure if that’s exactly what you want to do in life because we’re all about the grind, the hustle culture, the chasing of the tail that never ends. But nobody really took the time to realize that the in between is sometimes where you must process whether it’s exactly what you want. You’re not just going through the motion.
And how many people really lack of that moment of stillness to really ask themselves the question, is this really what I want? And then what if I achieve this? Do I really go am I really going to be happier? Am I really going to be more content? How much is enough really? Because the in between sometimes we really do not take it as though it is a time for us to reflect if that truly resonates with us.
Perhaps our decision has been influenced by other people. Maybe the in between the waiting is the time for you to truly understand that what if you get there are you prepared? Because much is given, much is required. Are you sure that when you make the money, that much amount of money, are you ready for that? Because that comes with challenges and responsibility as well. And many people want to have a bigger house and yet they cannot even take care of the small place that they have. Some people want to have a luxurious car, but are you willing to pay that much money? Can you afford it?
6. Embrace the monotony
So the in between sometimes is sometimes monotonous. Nothing is really going on there. It seems as though it’s boring. Same old, same old, just like a groundhog day. But you’ll be surprised that in the in between, that is where you can finally understand that your life is really something about exploration, curiosity. It doesn’t stop there, isn’t it? Because the moment you achieve something, then one once that’s done, you’re on to something else. And once you have achieved that thing and then you’re on to something else.
And then as I said, yes, it’s good to have a goal. It’s good to have a vision. It’s good to have something to aim for. However, we cannot just keep on achieving and striving and then never enjoy the achievements that we have actually have accomplished. I think many people have somehow moved so fast that they haven’t taken the time to slow down and enjoy and really breathe and understand and appreciate the hard work that they have put in especially in the country that we have always been told that you’ve got to achieve more the sky is the limit I am up for that however there’s a time in a day that you just have to stop, breathe, and be still and soak it all in and be grateful for what you have instead of chasing and constantly striving for more. Instead, you have to elegantly and gracefully just wait in the moment and enjoy the in between.
Because the in between sometimes is where you understand that life is not really a marathon. It is not something that you have to try to get there and to be as fast as it is there.
7. Practice mindfulness
I think many people we are mindlessly doing something because we are so caught up on the next the next and the next. Like when you’re eating something, have you not caught yourself or catch yourself eating mindlessly because you’re trying to watch something and just eating and shoving something in your mouth without enjoying and savoring every bite of the food in front of you.
Or maybe reading a book that you’re just getting to the next chapter without understanding what you have read or if someone would ask you tell me about what you just read and you can say I don’t really remember what I read because you were unable to understand and unable to grasp the whole concept of that chapter and I’m pretty sure you and I are guilty as such that when we read a book because we want to impress our friends by telling them.
It’s because we have allowed this whole thing to really just rush us through it. It’s about rushing. It’s about being rushing to the next thing as if where exactly are we going? And that is why sometimes I was thinking to myself, if somehow you’re a person who is dealing with a terminal illness, I’m pretty sure you would soak everything in at this moment, you will take the time to enjoy every bite of the food and appreciate that kind of delicious food that you’re eating because you now appreciate that your life might not be here tomorrow.
And maybe sometimes God allows us to feel the kind of sickness or the feel a kind of illnesses in our body to make us stop and breathe for a while and maybe ponder that life is more than just about chasing and life is more than just about creating uh and accumulating stuff. Maybe that’s what Paul said. We come into this world naked and we shall return naked and therefore you shall be content of what you have and because I am such a person who love to have an ambition but I think it’s all about narrowing it down.
8. Be intentional
It’s good to have ambition but too much of many things is you’re going to end up aiming at nothing. You got to be intentional as well. There are a lot of choices in the world, many distractions, many choices. That’s why people have indecision. I really believe that people are crippled with indecision because we are overly stimulated and there’s too much choices to make.
And when you really have to take the time to slow down and ask yourself the question of what is it really that you want to do and achieve in this life, you will eventually find the answer because most likely the answer is within you. It’s just a matter of you knowing and slowing down and appreciating the in between. So that is all my take on this episode. I hope that it makes sense. I don’t know. It just popped up out of my head out of nowhere. Hopefully you are well. Be brave, be courageous, and keep your faith. Have a nice day.
