By and By

For the past two days I have been extraordinarily frustrated that I've been stuck working on the same project and seemingly accomplishing nothing.  Can't talk about it here -- that confidentiality stuff.  I really do not understand why this task has come to me -- not in the cosmic (or karmic) sense -- and in any case I am not going to whine about it.  I really do not like whiners, and I try to model the behavior that is consistent with "no whining."

So in the immortal words of those great philosophers, Mick Jaggers and Keith Richards: 

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need.

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But that takes time to realize that you get what you need.  Which brings me to the "by and by" part.  We don't hear the phrase "by and by" so much anymore.  It seems when I was growing up I recall hearing it somewhat more.  Maybe it's because I grew up hearing so many old gospel hymns that had that phrase in it.  Elvis Presley sang one ("Well children by and by when the morning comes ... ), and the Carter family sang, "will the circle be unbroken by and by"... and there are others, too.  I even remember a joke told at Wurstfest by one of our friends that seemed to go on forever that kept using the phrase "by and by" over and over again.  (Thank goodness Danny Wayne is such a good storyteller or the joke could have gotten lost ...)

So this afternoon I was really wanting to push my own agenda and get things down the road toward the direction I thought they should go.  Of course, they just were not going that way.  I was starting to get ever so slightly less than jazzed about this situation.  Then it occurred to me.  It's not really up to me to drive this bus, and I really could let go of it all.  That's when I remembered the phrase by and by and realized it's going to be okay anyway, because the big picture is what counts.

By and by stands for the overall outcome.  It may be further down the road, a lot further down the road before we can see anything in perspective.  But one day we do get let in on the secret.

In the meanwhile, we get what we need. 
Are we observant enough to see that fact as it is happening though?