What do you do when you have to wait? I use a small backpack instead of a purse and it usually contains writing material and something to read. If I know ahead of time I will experience a long wait I bring along a bottle of water to sip on.
That works for me when the problem is to avoid wasting time or getting bored. It’s a lot harder to wait when something important to me is at stake and I’ve done all I could to make it happen. When it’s out of my control, completely in the hands of other people.
Kaitlin and Torben have been going through this lately. They’re in the process of getting their house remodeled and moved into a rental house about a month ago. The tentative start date was May 4th and the project was hung up in red tape until last Saturday morning. There will no doubt be more delays before the project is finished, but at least there’s a good chance that it will finally be started. What a relief. 🙂
What about you? Is it waiting sometimes hard for you? How do you handle it?
I run in place. I do stretches. I strike up a conversation with the person in line next to me .
When I have to wait for my husband to finish, I start another piece of work. Then he has to “wait” on me. This method can be endless, but we both get a lot done.
For me, waiting become hard if just waiting for unpredictable things… but the ability of someone to wait also an indicator for his/her patience.
Usually, I utilized the waiting time period by thinking about what should I do tomorrow.
.-= tikno´s last blog ..My congratulations to Sri Mulyani Indrawati =-.
I seldom find myself in a waiting situation — generally only at the doctor’s, dentist’s or optometrist’s office. I try to remember to bring a book. Several years ago, I used to use my PDA to edit entries that I was going to be posting in my now abandoned-in-place civil war blog.
Now that I have a smart phone, there are plenty of apps to fritter away the time, though I doubt if I will be using it to edit the new civil war blog that I am developing and posting on — a sesquicentennial blog: day by day entries of material from 150 years ago.
I think one of the worst for me for waiting when it was in someone else’s control has been when I was going back to work as a “contractor.” In both instances, it was pretty much a given that they were going to bring me back. However, the “project” I was going to be hired under wasn’t in the budget, so they had to get senior management to approve it…. which for this reason and that, ended up with me actually starting quite a few days later than they had wanted me to.
.-= Mike´s last blog ..Problems with “green” energy =-.
The waiting problem is usually subdivided into two components: What I do with my brain and what I do with my body. The first of these is usually easy as there are too many things to reflect on in life, and I can always pray. The body problem is trickier, because I frequently have a lot of energy to burn off while waiting which leaves me pacing this way and that, or maybe just flying circles overhead in the manner of your cartoon characters. The real problem develops when this kind of behavior is impolite, such as when there is a long running business meeting where my physical presence is mandatory but the mental presence isn’t.
Would you advise taking a book to a business meeting?
bikehikebabe,
That arrangement with your husband sounds great, as long as you don’t have to be somewhere at a particular time.
tikno,
One poem my mother taught me years ago was
I don’t believe that women are more patient than men, but I do think patience is a skill worth developing. 🙂
Mike,
Yes, I’ve been there, done that too.
When I think of feeling a bit frustrated I think of when we decided to get a car repainted for its protection. I was pleased that the local body shop made an appointment for a month away so they could be sure the shop would be free for the painting. Yeah, sure. It took over a month. In the meantime the weather turned bad and the poor car sat outside for several days completely stripped of all its paint.
Looney,
Thank goodness I don’t have to go to business meetings any more. I would try to surreptitiously do some writing, play some Sudoku or maybe use Mike’s trick of planning what I would do if I won the lottery. My body might be captive, but my mind is my own. 🙂
Of course the people in southern Louisiana are feeling helpless in the face of disaster, not just nuisances.
I welcome a wait
because that’s when
I meditate.
Like Jody, I too welcome waiting, so that I can meditate.
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..The Story Of My Life. =-.
Jean, there is waiting and there is waiting.
Unless my having to wait means that, in consequence, I have to let OTHER people (of the twitchy variety) wait I do not mind at all. It’s time out for me, a mini holiday. I like observing my surroundings and other people so I don’t carry books or anything else to hide behind. Neither do I ever get bored (one of my unique selling points).
The other type of waiting – the Godot variety – well, I don’t know; I suppose one just does without paying it much attention. I believe we call it HOPE.
U
Jody and Rummuser,
Meditating–that’s why I bring paper and pen. I meditate by writing, especially free-association writing. It’s powerful for me.
Ursula,
I’m always on holiday…and I love it!
Hmm. Meditating or getting something done while waiting. It depends on my mood. As I recall Anthony Trollope wrote a large part of his novels while waiting for his wife. It worked for him. 🙂
I have quite a few ‘wait’ times in my daily life…if I should have to leave the house.
I get agitated if my ‘chauffeur/friend’ is late because once when I went out the back to do something in the garden, the friend didn’t think to try the back…and I was left behind. If it’s nice I will sit in my enclosed porch and just dream. If it’s really warm I will be outside at the front.
The other times, I have wait period are waiting for public transport (I don’t have a car, which is uncommon thing here!)…because they run on a schedule I have make sure I’m at the pick up point on time! I might be on time for say the train and I can get on if it’s the starting point and wait in comfort but I might not have that option and be either standing or sitting on a wooden seat.
I rarely read, but instead ‘review my surroundings’ – the actual place, what is where – houses, shops, other vehicles. But my most favourite waiting view is PEOPLE – what they are wearing, carrying, even dreaming whether they are going or coming…catching natches of conversation – particularily when you do not know the topic!
Some people seem to be talking about their family, often about the latest baby addition OR they are talking about their destination.
I do talk to many people, either because they are unsure if this bus/train goes to xyz or other things like…I’m glad I missed that rain, or something else.
I do met the same people quite often, I met this lady recently who is trying to unravel her family immigration that their ship travelling through China and by then she had discovered i was studying Asia. Sometimes the people are going to the same place as me University and I have many young and older friends who travel the same journeys.
Once the journey begins, I am looking out of the window at the passing sites; I try to sit on different sides of the vehicle to get another view. Last evening it was colder so I looked for all the houses with their indoor fires going and mused on the chimney and other new flues why they weren’t 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..going up and sometimes dropping down the pit – update =-.
Cathy,
It sounds as if you make good use of your waiting time. Years ago I relied on public transportation. The thing that bothered me was having to be at the bus stop on time, then sometimes waiting as long as 20 minutes or a half an hour until the bus came. I did enjoy looking out the window when the bus finally came. Are your buses more on schedule than that?
I enjoyed your descriptions, especially of looking at the chimneys to see which houses had fires. That sounds cozy to me. 🙂
Cathy in NZ, thanks for that view into your life. Mine is pretty much the same. I like watching & sometimes meeting new people.