Fiction but Fact: Stop waiting for a miracle to happen and start doing

Set to the ringtone “Uplift,” my alarm goes off at precisely 10 a.m. (maybe 9:30 depending on the day). I reach over, turn it off, nap for another five minutes and finally drag myself out of bed. And then my day starts in a similar fashion as yesterday: work out, attend Zoom lectures, finish homework, eat food, FaceTime friends, pray, shower and sleep. I wake up the next day and the next only to do the same routine all over again. 

What has unfortunately also become part of my daily routine is telling myself “don’t worry, you’ll finish that tomorrow” even though I know I probably won’t. It’s like I keep waiting for something adrenaline-inducing to happen, something that could really justify my procrastination — but nothing ever does. So I wait until the next day, and the next day and the next, praying for something (it’s unclear what) to come. 

But it never comes. 

I’ve been stuck in this same cycle without even realizing it. And it’s only intensified with quarantine. Sure, in the beginning, I was eager to be productive and creative with my time (by securing internships, fine-tuning my photography skills and more), but now I’ve succumbed to a new yet unchanging quarantine routine — one that involves even more intensified procrastination and unproductiveness. As a result, I can’t help but think about an existential play I read in an IB English class in high school.

Written in 1949 by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, the two-act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot” tells the story of two men, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for the arrival of a third who (spoiler alert) never comes. Each act follows a day in the life of these two men that mirrors the last with uncanny similarity: They meet the same people and wait for the same person — Godot — over and over again. Vladimir and Estragon believe that waiting for the third man is necessary to receive meaning about their existence and their purpose. Even though he doesn’t come the first day, they determinedly repeat the same monotonous routine the next day. 

On almost every page, there are moments when Estragon turns to Vladimir and asks him what they are doing, as if he’d forgotten what they did the day before. At times, he tells his friend, “Let’s go,” indicating that he wanted to do something else but is met with a fierce response from Vladimir, who spits back, “We can’t … We’re waiting for Godot.” The repetitiveness of  this conversation denotes the majority of the play’s prose, highlighting Beckett’s recurring theme of choice and, more importantly, its significant power. 

Blinded by their need for clarity regarding “the meaning of life,” Vladimir and Estragon kill time waiting for someone who supposedly has the answer to it all. In doing so, they fail to realize that this very act of waiting is indeed a choice in itself. 

Stuck in a seemingly endless cycle, the two men are unable to translate a conscious decision into a physical act. So at the end of Act 2, even though Vladimir and Estragon agree to find shelter as the moon appears and night falls, they continue to stand silently, unmoving, like statues, returning to the same spot each day.

I’ve never truly understood the meaning of Beckett’s absurd play until now. The extra alone time on my hands has given me a chance to reflect and what I’ve realized is that though we may not like to acknowledge it, many of us have a lot in common with Vladimir and Estragon. Sure, we aren’t wanderers who wear bowler hats, but we nevertheless share their monotonous behavior of waiting.

Like Vladimir and Estragon, we’re all in a state of internal pause, sucked into a never-ending time loop. Waiting for a text back. Waiting for a show to return. Waiting for the lecture to end. Waiting for something — whatever it may be. But unlike the two of them, we have the advantage of knowing we have the freedom to choose. And it is this knowledge that will help us break our daily cycle of habit and inaction. 

Because ultimately, as Vladimir points out to Estragon near the end of Act 2, “We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener.” 

So let’s try to get rid of our bad habits. We all have the choice to do something better. Let’s stop recreating yesterday while praying today will be miraculously different. 

Shutting off my morning alarm (after the first time it rings) with enthusiasm, I’m ready to embrace tomorrow’s new day — a day that’ll feature less waiting and more doing. From here on out, I’ve promised myself to spice up my dull routine and use newfound time to try new things. And I hope you do the same even after quarantine ends. You, and only you, have the choice to change something in your life. 

So stop waiting around for something to happen. Just go out there and start doing. 

Aisha Patel is a freshman writing about fiction in parallel to current events. Her column, “Fiction but Fact,” runs every other Wednesday.