Waiting is death
I've had a really difficult relationship with the act of waiting. In part it represents an unresolved action, something that has yet to be done, but for whatever myriad of reasons hasn't yet. Waiting affects me in different ways according to the situation. Work? Yeah I can put that off. Personal plans? Need to hear back ASAP. Standing in line? No big rush. Truthfully it's hard to tell exactly how one can react to the prospect of waiting.
This comes up a lot because we are almost always waiting on something. Even if I am actioning things that I was waiting on, there is always something else that needs waiting on. Replies, emails, conversations, plans, trips, the bus. This rolls into efficiency and time management. We always need to be doing things as efficiently as possible to reduce time waste and waiting.
I always felt a pressure to need to control these periods. I would wait even longer than I needed before getting something done - procrastinate - to feel like I have control over my problem. Then I started cutting that out and tried building Rome in a day, but my arms collapsed from not resting. I figured that some level of waiting is necessary.
I'm being much more conscious of waiting periods. I don't think they are an enemy to be conquered, to be eliminated or controlled. It might just be as simple as recognizing they are there and work around their limits. Recognize what you can and cannot control - let the time pass because an early stress-induced death is what will kill you, not waiting.
-bzg
P.S. I got my hand on Waiting: An anthology of essays recently. I haven't actually started reading it yet, but have been thinking about the subject a lot since. Consider this a yardstick for my thoughts on it prior to reading.
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