Some time ago, on this platform, I wrote about patience. Now I would like to reflect on waiting because knowing how to wait means practicing the art of patience, one in which calm and reflection are necessary to learn in everyday life
Everything happens so fast today that perhaps the simplest thing to do is train your patience to learn to enjoy this moment when what I’m waiting for is about to come true: the only moment when everything is possible.
And it is from here that my reflection starts, from the conflicting feelings and emotions that follow one another when one is one step away from achieving a goal, and what it feels like in the moment before, when everything is still at stake and there is still to decide.
We could define the wait as the period of time that elapses between the pre-announcement of an event and its occurrence. But we must also refer to the state of mind of those who wait, to that precise instant within which all the hopes and expectations that a human being may have been enclosed.
Waiting is part of human nature. Man waits silently and that does not mean passivity, but being patient. Patience, as I see it, is the virtue behind waiting. Man is led to wait for the normal flow of events, their cyclicality, and their unpredictability. We can attribute the character of “pleasure” to this kind of expectation.
The other side of waiting is attrition. Today we are impatient, and mobilized by having everything now. And when that doesn’t happen we are unable to wait. We are incapable of waiting for an answer, of making a situation evolve
On the other hand, the time factor is not a variable that can be neglected in our lives. We are always in a hurry, eager to reap what we have sown, burning up waiting times. And we are therefore led to experience the waiting in an exhausting way, and this also has a negative effect on our relationship with each other.
The impatience that dominates the world and interpersonal relationships makes us lose sight of what is really worth fighting for and why not “wait”. Wait for it to pass, resolve, or otherwise change.
Unfortunately waiting is a concept now very far from the type of society in which we live. By now we are used to solving many issues with a click, to make most of our ailments go away with a pill; the art of waiting for a cold to go away by itself is no longer ours.
So if we don’t understand the importance of waiting and of cultivating trusting patience we could fall prey to anxiety, loss of events, loss of meaning… obsessively seeking answers to questions whose only sensible answer is that to wait.
The fact is that in a society where we can have everything immediately, we have forgotten that some things take time. Every moment is important and can give you something, so you have to know how to wait for things to happen in your own time, experiencing every moment as something important.
We have to rediscover patience, knowing how to wait, understanding that if we want to get to the top, we have to climb the mountain first.
Waiting is not only necessary, but it is also indispensable. We must become capable of knowing how to wait for the right time.
Take a seed and put it in a vase. You can think and do whatever you want, but it will take time to grow into a healthy and robust plant. And adding more water won’t make it grow sooner.
Even if you use a fertilizer you will still have to wait.
We should learn from Nature; it cannot anticipate or shorten the growth of plants, the seasons, or the constant and meticulous work of some animal species that take care of their work of art with patience and dedication (the beehive, the spider’s web, the anthill, etc. ), the passing of the day; even the birth of a child, however, is constant in its evolution, and always projected towards the future, but with patience and the ability to wait for the succession of events.
And a good entrepreneur knows that he cannot have an idea today, be on the market tomorrow, and start selling millions of products the next day. We all need time and, above all, trial and error.
Even uncertainty must be lived with patience because it is the antechamber of knowledge. You can’t know something until you know it, and you can’t complete something until you complete it. Self-evident, right? But that’s exactly what we lose every day: knowing how to wait. And, be careful, contrary to what is usually thought, uncertainty, when accompanied by active behaviors and attitudes (reflecting and searching), is not synonymous with immobility, rather it is a moment of elaboration.
Another obstacle to patience is expectations.
What is expected of life and the conditions in which we live, family, work, and friendship often goes beyond what reality can offer or give at that precise moment. Expectations often do not allow us to see how things really are and therefore to realize the goals achieved, the skills acquired and what has been built. A closer look will allow us to understand what can be achieved and what cannot be achieved and in what times, so as to reduce impatience and the negative experience in the face of waiting, sometimes for something that cannot exist in the here and now and perhaps not even in the future. It doesn’t mean giving up dreams or hopes, but reviewing them in the light of external reality and possibilities, so as to achieve things in the short term, improve one’s sense of effectiveness and make the wait less exhausting,
The ability to wait develops in learning to manage the different steps to get to what is desired, without the frenzy of doing too many things and perhaps badly, chasing unrealistic and too big goals, but doing few things, well and with awareness.
Indulgence towards others is also something that needs to be trained. Learning to accept other people’s times and methods is a good way to reduce impatience when they don’t match your own pace and waiting is necessary. Welcoming others for what they are, without pretensions, allows us to assume a more proactive attitude in favor of patient acceptance.
So planning and setting priorities allows us to learn to wait. Understanding what can wait and what must be done immediately is in fact a way to reduce the frenzy and give yourself time.
So everything has its own time and can be done calmly, patiently and carefully, waiting for the moment to do the rest, which is already set and well defined. In this way all moments acquire meaning and feelings of uselessness and dissatisfaction are reduced.
It doesn’t mean living passively and letting things flow as they come, but learning to live them fully, understanding that time is available anyway and it’s up to us to make it productive. Knowing how to wait doesn’t mean letting yourself be carried away by events, but knowing how to act at the right time, choosing and giving up calmly, and learning at the pace of life.
Blessings Aldo,
You article encompasses an age old weakness in mankind. I have to admit that all the time spent in a patrol car as a street cop, I grew to the point where once retired, my patience I did not have when it came to traffic. However, I have learned to be patient to avoid a serious action on my part that would injure another or myself, by finding a way to help in that moment of impatience. Our world is full of non-patient people because everything now is given in a hurry. The joy of wait and see has evaporated. Let’s hope our world develops a more tolerant society, but I keep my fingers crossed on that one. Great piece
Thank you, I’m glad you are interested in my post.
I agree, tolerance is enduring patiently by accepting, and respecting, diversity and opinions different from your own, and at the same time showing understanding towards other people’s attitudes and behaviors even when they disapprove of each other.
Our patience is engaged elsewhere, waiting for our life to come true, for our dreams to come true, for someone to love us, for the job we dream of to arrive, for us to finally understand what we want to do, in short, waiting to become happy .
Being able to wait for an event to arrive is something you learn over time, but it’s also a “skill” that many adults don’t possess.
It is difficult to cultivate patience when stressed by having too many commitments, too many places to go, and too many people to keep in touch with.
Impatience is an existential, personal and social dimension in which the drives, which lead us to want everything immediately, take over.
I thank you. As always you do not miss your support and comments.
I really appreciate it.
You tackle a hugely important issue, Aldo. You tackle the issue of patient waiting with depth.
Waiting as you described it is patience is the virtue behind waiting. Then explaining why patience is necessary and so is waiting you covered very well. In our VUCA world where volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity prevail the need to wait patiently becomes a top priority. “Even uncertainty must be lived with patience because it is the antechamber of knowledge. You can’t know something until you know it, and you can’t complete something until you complete it.”
There is no substitute to patient waiting in our new world. This is an issue that very few authors discussed and you did well to do so.
This brings the issue of expectations. In our world expectations fall more likely than any time before. This again demands from us to expect less and to wait patiently more.
I thank you. As always you do not miss your support and comments.
I really appreciate it.