LAUGHING IN LIMBO

Betwixt and between. That's what this moment in time feels like. And this was brought home to me when I got off the phone after two hours with an AT&T technician. It was obvious my Internet connection was awry last night when I tried to load a TV show on Hulu.com to watch during dinner. The video kept stopping every few seconds. And all websites took forever to load. I doublechecked that it wasn't my MacBook Pro by plugging in my IBM ThinkPad and encountering the same problem. So the call to AT&T today.

And what is it with these big international companies and their broken English-speaking technicians? I've met a lot of citizens of India in my life, have been friends with a few, and one thing I've admired about most of them is their command of the English language, quite often with a very attractive British accent. So how come the ones these companies hire for tech support have such difficulty with the language. Where do they find them? And are they really so inept at English, or do they teach them broken English so as to slow things down and lower our expectations, or so frustrate us that we'll give up?

In limboland, one often finds oneself going off on tangents like this.

A technician will be by tomorrow to fix my connection, I hope.

Also, I await a response on a major project to promote my Moneylove Club audio subscription series to a huge audience specifically interested in self-development. If this happens, it will occupy much of my time getting it all organized and getting prepared for a huge surge in business. Thus I am reluctant to start any other projects until I know how this will turn out. Again, a sense of limbo, of being sort of lost in space.

My time in prison was like this in some ways, in that I could make lots of plans, but most of them had to wait until my release. And right now I have some offers and plans that involve traveling outside the U.S., but I won't be able to do that until September at the earliest, when I may get off my parole status and be able to obtain a passport.

So what does one do with this limbo time? For me, it's a time to reflect, to research, to read and learn, and to laugh as much as possible. I feel like one of those little racing car toys that you hold while pressing the wheels down and rev them up, then holding it down aware that it will take off rapidly when you let go. My wheels are revved, but I do feel like I'm being held down, and someone or something has to let me go.

I had this feeling about a whole country when I visited and did a number of talks and seminars in South Africa in 1989. Mandela was still in prison, but everyone knew he would soon be released. Apartheid was still in effect, but everyone knew it was about to be dismantled. And it was election time, with the Liberals planting signs all over with their slogan, "Vote Your Hopes Not Your Fears", a sentiment that would have landed someone in prison just a few years before. My host and I drove past a college in Pretoria and saw a black female student walking along holding hands with a white student. My host said, "Two years ago that would have been a felony offense." So a sense of change was in the air, but it hadn't fully happened yet. In other words, limbo. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, in fact it was exciting. And to some extent, my current state of limbo is exciting. Maybe not quite as comfortable as I would like to be, but definitely with a sense of new adventures and opportunities coming.

And as with everything in life, how I choose to experience and react to this state will decide whether it feels good or bad. Right now, I've decided to vote my hopes rather than my fears.

Jerry