One evening some time back, after I had come home from working out, I crossed the living room to close the drapes and, as I did so, I accidentally knocked one of my largest houseplants off a shelf. The result was a rather huge mound of wet potting soil on my carpet.

“Crap!,” I said.

Along with pieces of jade plant, I started picking up clumps of the soil and putting them all into a shopping bag. It didn’t take too long to see, though, that if I continued very far with this activity, I would be at risk of grinding the wet soil into my lightly-colored carpet, making it all the more difficult to clean up. I paused, thought a minute, and decided that this might be much easier to eventually deal with if the soil were dry, rather than this wet, clumpy stuff. (I’d just watered the plants two days earlier.)

I decided that I’d just wait and let the whole mess air out. And, then, I started to think about my old, old (thirty-plus-years old) vacuum cleaner and how unlikely it would be that it’d successfully help me clean up this mess — even if the potting soil eventually turned into a dry sand. So, it looked like I’d have to do two things: let the huge mound of soil dry for a few days in the middle of the room and look for a new vacuum cleaner.

The next day, when I was out driving, I happened upon a vacuum cleaner store. I stopped in and forty-five minutes later walked out with a wonderful, powerful, new machine. OK: that was the easy part.

The most difficult element of this whole thing, as you might imagine (well, maybe not), was waiting for the darned soil to dry. There it sat, day after day, a huge pile of black dirt in the middle of my light brown carpet, reminding me of my clumsiness and taking away from the perfect order of my at-home world. When messes, disorder and pain occur in my life I want to fix what ever it is. Immediately! I don’t like to leave things unattended; I want to take care of business. But, there it was, every morning when I awoke, every night when I returned home…a mess in the middle of my world. Not even, as things go, that big of a mess, but, simply put, a mess.

When I was away from home, I could pretend it didn’t exist. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. This ugliness was non-existent, that is until I returned home. Then, there it was again. Waiting for me to ignore. Well, not ignore, exactly, but to leave unattended until it could be properly “fixed.” I tried not to look at the black spot in my life. I averted my eyes. I turned my back. I went for a walk. But, always, always, there it was. A black spot I could not ignore, because, well, it was a black spot!

But, then, slowly, I realized what a good lesson this was. This was a test of patience: a growth experience. This was “a good thing.” I knew that all I had to do was wait and this problem would find resolution. It merely required time. All that was getting in the way was my impatience, my obsessive nature. I recognized that my “fix it now” nature was not the best approach. That sometimes the best thing is to do nothing… at least for a while. “Every mess in its own time.” Maybe that’s what should become my motto, my creed for living, for the new, improved, patient me.

Eventually (it actually only took five days), I was able to clean things up. The new vacuum clearer did a great job sucking up that dreadful black mound of now-dry powder and restoring order and harmony to my living space. To my life.

I am wishing that the peace that eventually came to me in this process had always been with me. I would like to always have been the patient one, the person, who despite small or large life dilemmas, could say… “ah, so…every solution in its own time.” And, “this too shall pass.”

Unfortunately, I’ve been prone to be the fix-it guy. Fix it now or all is lost. If it isn’t fixed now, the world is not perfect, and I want the world to be perfect.

Maybe, though, I’m growing. And I’m glad that I am…living, growing, and evolving. Experiencing what this life is all about. Really. Living.