As I waited in line to place an order for my morning coffee, I took in the glorious sight outside and thought to myself how happy I was to finally be through airport security. It was early morning at LAX, the sun painting the sky a deep crimson beyond the terminal’s towering windows. Airplanes sat quietly at their gates. Baggage carts and trucks zipped around the tarmac, growing busier with the coming light of the day.

Even in that early hour, the place pulsed with a quiet sort of excitement. I’ve often wondered how it must be to work in an airport, around the constant buzz of travel. Secretly, I’m envious of those airport workers who get to bask in the busy excitement of people darting to and from far off countries and cities all day long. The excitement of an airport, is for me, contagious and always fills me with a certain caffeine like high. It wakes me up. Gets me alert. Makes me want to go…somewhere, anywhere. Though I’m sure airport workers will have a different opinion on the busyness of their place of employment.

Completing the task of getting to the airport, checking in luggage, and getting through security is an elixir from the gods for an anxious traveler like myself. I’m one of those types who likes to get to the airport hours early, and wait it out in a lounge or at the gate.

I’ve missed one flight in my entire life, caught up in afternoon Istanbul traffic. I made it to the gate with ten minutes to spare, only to be told they were no longer accepting passengers. Since that fateful day half broke and stranded in Istanbul, I swore to myself never again.

So we arrive early to the airport when I can help it. The best flight deals are usually the earliest departures. I’ve learned over the years that a morning flight, while tempting and seemingly benign, can be terrible. An 8 a.m. flight means getting up 4 hours before the flight, depending on where I’m staying prior to the flight. Getting to the airport on time, with kids, meant missing out on morning coffee at the hotel. So while I was happy to be through security, my body now told me it was time for coffee. Which meant time for another line.

Before the security line was the line to check in my luggage at my airline’s counter. Before that, the slow line of airport traffic to get to my terminal.

Lines. Nothing but lines.

And as I stood there, impatiently introduced to another line for coffee (maybe the most important line of the morning), I began to think about all these lines I endured in the span of two hours. Frustration began to set in. I was over being in a damn line. My line mates seemed just as frustrated. In an airport, everyone has somewhere to be. This contagious anxiety bleeds from person to another, spreading around until we are all infected. The particles of impatience float like dust motes between travelers. A deep inhale pushes it into my blood. A glance at a watch or phone. A grumble and look to see if any other coffee places have shorter lines. People stand around with tickets and crossed arms.

Standing in that line, I thought to myself, travel is nothing more than a series of lines one must wait in. I imagined the upcoming line I’d have to get in to board the plane. Then the line to get out of the plane once it landed. Then it occurred to me that it’s not just travel, my life maybe nothing more than a series of lines.

To live around other people is to wait your turn.

Wait.

Ah, yes, that’s the word that makes the idea of a line so dreadful. Wait is the word that props up and gives weight to the word ‘line’. It’s not the line that’s terrible, it’s the waiting behind it. It’s the burning of time. It’s all the other things you could be doing, but can’t, because you’re stuck in line. A line is nothing more than the physical manifestation of waiting, and waiting means practicing patience.

We spend most of our lives looking towards the future, waiting for whatever it is we set our minds to. Goals. Schools. Jobs. Titles. Money. Retirement. All of it is a mental line of waiting our turn for what we might feel is owed for hard work. We might not acknowledge it, but we are in a line right now. In line for what? You may ask. Well, only you know that answer.

There’s no escaping the lines of our life. How we view ‘the line’ in our minds makes all the difference.

Disneyland has some of the worst lines around. Some line wait times are 90 minutes! 90 minutes for a 3 minute ride. Does that sound like a good trade-off? At first, when I was younger, it was the lines that made me dislike Disneyland. I felt that you paid an extraordinary amount of money just to stand around in lines for half the day. But as I got older and became a parent, I realized that the lines at Disneyland can be enjoyed. It’s time spent with your family or friends. Yeah, you can zone out, like some do in lines. But you can also talk. You can enjoy the shared anticipation of the group. Enjoy the company of those around you. Is spending idle time with people we like truly a waste of time? It is if you frame it that way.

From a young age, we are taught to get into lines. It starts when you are young, and then it never ceases.

In elementary school, I was assigned a number and had to get in line in that order in front of the class each day on my way in or out. Line up for tether ball or four square. Line up for lunch.

When I joined the Navy, lines were the only way to function on a ship or at boot camp. I’ve spent hours of my life in parade grounds drilling with fellow recruits in perfect lines. Standing at parade rest. Locking step. The echo of military-issue boots in step on the parade grounds is the sound of lines to me. On the boat, it was lining up in the chow line to eat. Lining up for the head. Lining up to muster each morning and inspection. Even getting on and off the boat, there is a line that must occur as you walk up and down the gangway and stop to ask permission to board or cross the quarterdeck.

Is life is simply a series of lines? Lines that get us from one checkpoint to another as we hurriedly age and progress through life?

No, I don’t think so.

The problem is viewing life as linear progression, when it’s not. Life is circular. Even if some of us come to the conclusion, like I have, that life is anything but a line, we cannot escape having to get in line. This is the way of our western societies. It’s the system. It’s what they tell us to do, and we have to do what they tell us, right?

So we get in line. There’s really not a choice. Society forces us down this path.

Having expectations is the cause of disappointment. Accepting that there’s never going to be an equal line can ease some of the frustration of this waiting in line business we’ve been born into. The lines aren’t fair or equal, no matter how orderly they look on the outside. Especially here in America. The basis of this country is built upon inequality and the ability of some, those with capital, to exploit those without it. Good or bad, that’s capitalism. It’s zero sum. Winners and losers.

There doesn’t have to be just two classes in our capitalist system of rich and poor. There is third way, and it’s called the middle class. The bigger and stronger our middle class, the less rich the rich become, and herein lies the reason our middle class has been dismantled piece by piece over the years.

The dwindling of our middle class makes those who line up and believe in the line feel cheated and angry. This has screwed up our perception of the lines we wait in. They are not the same lines our parents or grandparents waited in. Realizing that the game has changed makes waiting in line easier. It’s not the poor people who are screwing things up, if something is going badly in your line, maybe look to the rich who determine our system’s rules. If you want something to change about the line you are in or how the line functions, it’s not the poor or vulnerable who have caused this.

There is no more one line that we can all get in and hope to equally get ahead. But there are still plenty of lines. Plenty of options. Where you were born, how much money your parents have, where you live and work, your intelligence, your education, how you get along with others; all play a part in the line you get in. All of that determines the speed of your line and the ‘reward’ you get at the end.

There is a beauty to an orderly line because it symbolizes order and fairness, even if the symbol is skin deep, even if life is not linear, lines are still a glorious product of nature. It’s people working together and understanding an unwritten contract. Ants line up, and ants get things done. So humans do too.

I am in line now (one of many): Financial Independence Retire Early is the line I’m in.

I’m waiting for the day I quit work. It’s like one of those winding zigzagging Disneyland lines for a ride. Except I’ve reached the end of the line, I’ve gotten to the ride and decided not to get on! Why? Because I’m crazy? An idiot? Maybe. No, because I’ve strangely fallen in love with the line I used to hate. I’ve somehow embraced the moment, the line, the idleness, the circularity, the moving of the goal posts. I’ve embraced the wait. Because in the end it’s not really a wait.

There is no line.

No boring middle.

Every moment we are alive, we are at the end and start of the line at the same time.

No matter what, if I were to get out of line right now, or get on the ride the next time I get to the front of the line, there would be something else I would have to line up for. Something else to wait for that I couldn’t have right away. So what’s the rush if you’re just going to find yourself waiting for something else? Why not enjoy now? Enjoy the line for what it is?

Of course, what I’m saying could be described as fear. A comfort bubble. Golden handcuffs. Indecisive. Fear of the ride and the unknown. I dwell on that too as I sit in this line. I fear myself being fearful. Is that why I’ve come to love the line? Is it a coping mechanism? If I were to get out of line, would that be selfish?

When I’m an old man, how will I view this point in my life? I have no idea what my future self will think, but I know that right now, I’m savoring this time. I savor my house full of green plants and messy kids. I savor a steady paycheck. Half finished home projects. Half written books. Piles of dirty dishes to be washed. I savor my routine in the morning, meditating, writing in my journal, slowly making pour-over coffee. The sound of the wind in the afternoon in the summer rushing in from the cold San Francisco Bay. I savor all of it.

Everything I’ve ever worked for in my forty-two years alive has taken me to this point in life. When you’ve gotten to a point that you’ve worked so hard for, do you give it up? Is this life I’ve made for myself holding onto me…or is it me holding onto this life?

At this point, I can’t tell. Maybe I don’t want to know.

I’ve waited in so many lines throughout my life that I can’t even count them all.

Some lines I’ve waited in were dead ends.

Some failures and regrets.

Some surprisingly successful.

Some went nowhere but were wonderful while they lasted.

The people I’ve waited in line with were some of the best parts. Some people I’ve waited with are dead, some have become people that I used to know, and others I’m still with. All of it worth something while it lasted and while it goes on.

Most lines I was never aware of while I was standing in them. Right now, I’m acutely aware of the line I’m in. This might be the best line I’ve ever been in. I don’t know exactly what I’ll get or say or do when I reach the end of this FIRE line. I can’t think of anything better or any other place I’d rather be than in this line, not waiting for anything, god no, but simply being; breathing, standing, experiencing life.

“Sir, what do you want?”

The voice pulled me back into the airport. Back into the glowing morning. Back into line for coffee. I looked up to the barista, then to the menu behind her. I could see a line of irritation form across her mouth and eyes as she realized I was not ready to order.

How had this line moved so fast? Was I really at the front? I didn’t even have a chance to read the menu as I’d been caught up in this daydream. Luckily, it was a simple order.

“Good morning. Two coffees and two bananas, please.”

After another wait, they handed me the coffee and fruit I’d ordered. I took my steaming cup of goodness and walked toward my gate, knowing there would be another line waiting for me there. I looked back at the line for coffee I’d just been in. It had grown quite long. Others in that line glanced at me with a sort of envy as they saw I had what they wanted in my hands. I was glad to be out of that line. Glad to be able to move on to the next stop. I got what I wanted and was now on my way.

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Any and all thoughts welcome.

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