What Are We Waiting For?

Do you know how easy it is to find something to wait for? Whether it's waiting for class to end or waiting for our shift to start at work, we always end up in the process of waiting. In fact, just think about how every New Year, someone always says, “I’m going to start working out on the first of January” or “ next Monday, I’ll start waking up earlier.” We find ourselves putting things off and waiting so many times it becomes normal to wait and want but not actually do anything. The truth is, the longer you wait, the harder it is to take action. It's only a matter of time until you ask yourself how far does waiting for your future actually get you in life?

     A famous Samuel Beckett play, “Waiting for Godot'', shows this exact situation where the main characters are just waiting. That's it, that's the whole play. Although Beckett never really explained what this play means, one lesson he portrayed in my interpretation is the absurdity of waiting. I’ll elaborate, so basically, in this play, two men by the name of Vladimir and Estragon are waiting under a leafless tree for someone named Godot. Throughout the play, they constantly talk about how bored they are but never leave that tree, and they meet two other characters while waiting, Pozzo and Lucky. These two characters serve as a distraction but also represent modernistic problems. Shortly after Pozzo and Lucky leave, a little boy tells Vladimir and Estragon that Godot will not make it that night, but he will for sure be there the next day. The next day, the men contemplate leaving many times but always remind themselves they are “waiting for Godot''. The leafless tree has now grown a few leaves, and Pozzo and Lucky arrive again. They appear different and have no memory of meeting the two men the day before. After they leave, the boy arrives again with the same message, Godot will not come tonight, but he will be here without fail tomorrow. The boy also has no recollection of meeting Estragon or Vladimir the day before. Both Vladimir and Estragon agree to leave and come back tomorrow to wait for Godot. That's the whole play. Of course, this is a very summed-up version of the play, and if you watch it or read it, you will find many more symbolic topics and themes. But for right now, this summary serves my theory that Beckett was portraying the absurdity of waiting.

     Every day the two men come back to this tree to wait for Godot; they don’t remember what they're waiting for and don’t know who Godot is. But without fail, they come back each day to wait. It's absurd, and that’s the point. So many of us do the exact same thing without realizing it. “I’m going to wait until 5 to start doing my homework”, “At 6, I’ll do the dishes”, and “Next week, I’ll make an appointment.” We wait and wait, but eventually, it becomes harder to fulfill the task we set for ourselves. You might be really good at self-discipline, and that’s great if you are, but that’s not the case for many others. The more you wait, the longer you stay in this repetitive cycle. This point can even be taken one step further by talking about how when you're young, you want to be older, so you wait until you are, and then when you're in high school, you're waiting to become an adult and graduate, once you graduate you go to college and wait to graduate again. Then you wait to get a job, then you wait to get a raise, then you wait to have a family, then you wait to retire. At least in a stereotypical lifespan, that's the case. It can be scary to think about it from this perspective, especially if that's not the life you want to live. But that’s why I’m writing this essay, to remind you that you can stop waiting. Estragon and Vladimir could have left that tree at any moment, and so can you. You don’t have to wait until there are leaves on the tree and a specific amount of time has passed; you can just get up and meet your goal. There can’t be change without action.  Enjoy the present moment and don’t live in an illusion or dream. If you’re always holding out, hoping the future is better instead of making your future a reality, you’ll be waiting forever. You’ll be coming back to the same tree to wait for Godot, who, spoiler, will never come.