Waiting for an answer

Waiting is difficult. Even those with great patience must find it hard sometimes. People tell you if you find yourself in a situation where you don't know what to do, just wait and the answer will come to you. I would like to call "bullshit."

I have personally NEVER found myself in a situation where doing nothing but waiting has given me the answer. You could make an argument against me, and you might be right, but I've yet to see it in effect. When you're in a situation where you need an answer or where you need to make a decision, waiting always makes things worse. You put it off and hope that if you don't think about it, the answer will come to you. Answers don't "come." If anyone knows of an answer bait product, by all means, please point the way. I find that answers come when you think about it and talk about it and act on it. Situations don't fix themselves. Problems don't solve themselves. So why is everyone so content to tell you to sit back and wait?

Samuel Beckett wrote an intriguing play about waiting. Waiting for Godot anyone? In junior year I wrote a research paper on it. That was most certainly a play where waiting provided no answers, no Godot, and no help. Perhaps it has to do with my personal impatience, but I find waiting to be one of the most daunting tasks in the world. You present someone with a question and they say "wait, I have to think about it," or "wait, the time just isn't right." We have to stop waiting and start doing.

I agree that perhaps there are situations like waiting for testing to be done where it is true that nothing can be done but waiting. But that's not a situation where you have other options. In a situation where you have some other choice, do the other thing! Don't leave yourself hanging. Or at least think about it. Discuss it. Figure it out, don't expect it to figure itself out.

As you can probably tell, Waiting and I are having a bit of a fight right now. But I still think, even if you take away my general frustration, that I have a slightly valid point. Sometimes waiting hurts and makes your stomach twist into knots.

Right now, for example, I am waiting for dinner.

And now it has been made.

Impatiently yours,

-T.A.D.