The Sweet Pain Of Anticipation

We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are very alive. — Albert Camus

Anticipation can be better than the real thing. I bet you can come up with examples of your own, but for me that moment before I bite down on an oatmeal raisin cookie may be better than any cookie I’ve ever tasted, and I’ve tasted a lot of cookies.

Anticipation can also be frustrating. Witness a young child staring at all the packages under a Christmas tree.

Anticipation requires trust — believing in the future, and it also involves a delayed gratification. When we anticipate an event in the future we are willing to wait and place value on what we are anticipating.

We now anticipate each of our futures. It may be the birth of a child or grandchild, a new job, a move to the mountains or the beach, or simply the anticipation of the next day and the new life each day brings.

For each of us may the sweet pain of anticipation be as satisfying and the reality that follows.

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About the author

Webb Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of The United States. His novels, When Men Betray, Ginger Snaps, A Game of Inches, The Eighteenth Green, and The East End are published by Beaufort Books and are available online or at your local bookstore. When Men Betray won one of the IndieFab awards for best novel in 2014. Ginger Snaps and The Eighteenth Green won the IPPY Awards Gold Medal for best suspense/thriller. His latest, “Light of Day” will be on the bookstands soon.