He returns home to find that his daughter is in the path of a moving truck that will run her down in gruesome slow-motion. He feels powerless to save her.

Sound weirdly familiar?

I don’t know about you but waiting has never been my forte. I’m impatient, even more so when there’s the distinct possibility I could be a patient soon. I don’t even like movies with “Waiting” in the title: “Waiting for Godot,” “Waiting for Guffman.” Forget about it. Many of us are just Waiting for Grey Goose or Guinness as alcohol sales in the U.S. are up 55% since the shelter-in-place order was called.

Of course, waiting is difficult for most of us, especially when so much is on the line. It seems like I’m always waiting endless amounts of time for test results for my cancer (so far, so good). And like the rest of the world, I wait for a vaccine and a slowing of the curve. I wait for the reopening of the Modern Elder Academy, and the reuniting of family and friends. I wait to be close to others again—to hug, touch, and feel. We’re all in a state of waiting for this slow-motion world to return to its normal rhythm. Or not.

Our options are clear. We could watch the clock and let the world slow even more, or we can get busy doing whatever keeps our minds and hearts occupied. Right now, I’m studying Spanish. I’m finding it curious that the verb “to wait” is “esperar” which sounds quite a bit like “inspirar” which means “to inspire,” a word that can be traced back to the Latin “inspirare,” which comes from the word “spirare,” which means “to breathe.”

I think back to Salliji, my meditation teacher, until she passed away at age 89. She taught me that “inspire” means “to breathe in spirit,” and that whenever I was feeling impatient, I should breathe out stress and breathe in spirit.

It’s good advice for us all—transforming the waiting experience into an opportunity to reconnect with spirit; to become more conscious of our breath as we practice gratitude for life. Maybe life is just about Waiting for Gratitude?