Heather Thompson Day - Its Not Your Turn: What to Do While Youre Waiting for Your Breakthrough

M Y COUNSELOR GAVE ME the strangest advice a few months ago. Almost out of the blue, she said, You should start waiting in the longest lines you can find. She meant everywhereat the grocery store, getting my cars emissions checked, ordering dinner last in our group of friends. I hadnt even been talking about patience or anything; I had been talking about my life in general. But she wanted me to wait more.

I do not want to wait more. I want to wait less. I look around my life and there seem to be lots of places where I see others get to go first and I have to wait my turn. Its frustrating. But there is also something really important about knowing when it is my turn and when it isnt.

My counselor wanted me to practice waiting my turn in what I could control since Im getting ample practice in waiting in ways I cant control. So even when Im running short on time, I pick a parking spot a little farther away (Get those steps in, am I right?). And even when Im exhausted after work, I pick the longest line at the grocery storethe one behind that woman with all the coupons and more tiny things in her basket than one would have thought humanly possible.

And while I am waiting my turn, I am not wasting my time. I keep a book on my phone, and I read. No social media, no textingI just read books. Books that tell me where my spot is on this planet and where my spot isnt. Books that tell me what is my work to do and what isnt. Books that stretch me in my relationships with humans and my relationship with God. Books that tell me what to do while Im waiting for my turnfor groceries, for my car to be cleaned, for my prayers to be answered, for my dreams to come true.

Books like this one.

While you are waiting, grow. While you are waiting, learn. While you are waiting, listen. Its your turn to become who youve always wanted to be.

Much of the war against the devil is about whether youll quit.

I N THE BEGINNING, I had to fake it: the happiness, the peace, the congratulations. It all felt heavy to carry over the gap of where I currently was and where I wanted to be. I was a few years into my PhD and couldnt find a job. I applied to what felt like every higher education institution with an opening in my field and kept getting rejected. At some point, it started to feel personal.

For my daughters first birthday, we planned a huge party. My little girl was turning one, and I wanted to celebrate her. I went to the store to buy food. I had just paid for my groceries when I realized I forgot to get paper party plates. As I handed my card to the woman on the register, I watched as the gap between me with all my education and her with this minimum wage job evaporated.

Maam, she said. Your card is declined. My face got hot.

Paper plates are $2.50. Yall. I did not have $2.50.

How in the world did this happen to me? I had a husband. I had a house. I had a daughter. I had nearly three degrees. But I didnt have $2.50? I was mortified. My husband and I got into the car with our groceries and drove home in complete silence. I cried myself to sleep that night. I felt like a failure. I remember emailing God a letter (there are actual sites that allow you to do that) and while, of course, I knew this email wasnt going to Gods inbox, it felt therapeutic to hit send on all my grievances. I thought God opened doors and windows? I thought God owned the cattle on a thousand hills? I thought God answered prayers? Where was my testimony?

It felt like God had played me. I had done everything right. I focused on school. I excelled in my teaching. Yet, here I had nothing to show for it. At this same time, one of my best friends Jewel, called me. She had just been hired by NASA as a recruiter for their minority student program. I couldnt get a job teaching at a community college, and Jewel was now employed by NASA.

I am so happy for you, I legit choked.

And its not that I wasnt happy for her, I was. I was just also so deeply sad for myself. That was the moment I learned a lesson in my life that Ive repeated to myself a hundred times since: Heather, its not your turn. Sometimes, you show up to someone elses party. Sometimes you force yourself to clap when you really want to cry because emotions arent always singular. You are allowed to feel sad for yourself while also being happy for what is happening to someone else. I clapped for Jewel because she deserved it. It wasnt my turn, but it was hers. And I had to be the friend she needed.

In todays culture, its a race to the top of the ladder. According to Pew Research, millennials are the most educated generation. We are the generation of hashtags and filters. Everything is created to project an image of who we want to bewhich is never as we actually are. We try our hardest to be witty in 140 characters or less. We post photos of our nights out, and the scene is always way more intriguing than the night really was.

Once I went to the beach with a friend. She experienced nausea from her early pregnancy. She complained the entire time and never got in the water. Within an hour, she asked to leave. That night, she posted the two photos we took with the caption: Fun in the sun. That was one of the first times I realized we have totally curated online lives that are almost nothing like what we live. We get dozens of comments, hundreds of likes, and it fuels our need to continue with the charade. Anything for a hit. If only our real lives felt as successful as our cropped ones. I cant think of a single millennial friend who hasnt had some type of struggle with either anxiety or depression. Not a single one. Which means though we may feel alone, we arent. There are probably thousands, if not millions, of us sitting right now feeling as though its never going to be our turn.