Everything Pops When It’s Ready
In addition to ghostwriting blogs for therapists, I also ghostwrite books. One of my clients and I spent nearly a year querying publishers until finally this week one of them said, “Yes, we’d love to publish this.” It reminded me of a post from April 2012 about timing. Enjoy.
Our society is obsessed with “overnight success,” but if you dig a little deeper, you will find that it usually takes years and years of hard work for a person to be successful “overnight.” I was reminded of that this weekend when I re-watched Mystic Pizza. Did you know Matt Damon is in that movie?
An 18-year-old Matt Damon as seen in Mystic Pizza.
He only had a line or two but still. He was a working actor and it took another nine years for him to become famous with the release of Good Will Hunting. And for Julia Roberts, it took another two years after Mystic Pizza for her to land Pretty Woman and become the highly paid actress that she is.
Why did it take two years for Roberts to become famous and nine years for Damon? What made each of those films “the one” that made them a star? I take it for granted that people weren’t always famous. That Matt Damon hasn’t forever been glossing magazine covers, that there was a point where he was a normal guy, playing bit parts, trying to make ends meet, and then the stars aligned, he had the right connections, and all of a sudden, he became a household name.
This is how movement works, according to my spiritual teacher. It’s systaltic like a heartbeat. Do you know how a heart pumps blood? I learned this ages ago in AP Bio. A heart is like a syringe – it fills up with blood, pauses at fullness, and then pushes the blood out. In all of life, we experience this cycle. It’s the natural order of things to expand, pause, and contract.
This will make more sense later. Photo by JAEHOON PARK on Unsplash
My spiritual teacher says, “[M]ovement through speed and pause is an essential factor for each and every animate or inanimate object. Wherever there is existential factor there must be this pulsation. An entity acquires strength and stamina during the pause phase, and emanates vibration during the speed period. There cannot, however, be any absolute speed or absolute pause in the created world.”
In other words, progress usually isn’t linear. We like to think it is – follow these steps and eventually everything will turn out. But it’s not true. Usually progress is filled with fits and starts. There are breaks, pauses, a whole lot of nothing happening, and then BOOM, full speed ahead. And no one knows why nor can they predict it. You can’t say, “Play bit parts for nine years and you, too, will become famous.” You could play bit parts for 50 years and still not be famous. Or you could play one bit part and then get cast into a lead role that catapults you into fame.
Why do these things happen? There’s a bit of mystery involved but I’m coming to realize timing is crucial. We’re like little popcorn kernels – we all “pop” when we’re ready. When it’s our time, when the conditions are right, that’s when we move forward. And not just a little bit, usually we take a giant leap forward like a popcorn kernel exploding.
I dream of a world where we recognize progress isn’t linear – it’s more like a heartbeat with a pause built in. A world where we remember sometimes you can work and work and work and see no results until finally one day you do. A world where we understand everything pops when it’s ready.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
