We're born waiting for our someone to feed us. If that doesn't happen it sets a certain set of responses within the infant. The conditioned response to crying-and-you-get-food reasonably soon makes the body's chemistry set up differently than in the infant that cries in pain and gets barely enough food, occasionally, to keep him alive. From then on, we wait for good weather, the next season, the next phone call, the next pay check, the next job, the next date and the list is pretty much endless throughout life.
However, one of the most poignant waits if for someone you love to hear your feelings. Without that connection, a relationship is never complete. Unfortunately, as was mentioned in the book Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus, men are fixers and often want to change the feelings assuming those are the problem rather than a result of a problem. A guy's response is often, "Stop feeling that way." (Easy for him to say because he has never responded in like fashion.) A greater problem arises when one waits for their partner to learn to do things their way rather than respecting what led to their partner feeling or doing as they do in the first place. So often they miss the damage done when they attempt to disqualify the feelings. They do not realize that the marriage is slowly falling apart. At time there is no acceptance that people will feel what they feel, with little control other than by insight and a new perception, even though they may nag, cajole, threaten or manipulate to get others to feel their way.
Our voting for public officials is a very similar set of dynamics. We wait to hear what the media says about candidates, ask all our friends (though we lose some who violently disagree with our political views). The media has become the Billy Mays of news delivery. We are told this news station is the best, what we will be about to see if we will only wait and not turn that dial, or the remote channel changer, or whatever we will be seeing later on the 'show'. Some of us wait to hear what the newscasters whom we have come to agree with and respect have to say.
In church some wait to hear a sermon, others wait for the sermon to be over! On the job we wait for the coffee break, lunch, or the end of the work day.
We wait to hit a certain age, to get over a cold, for the next meal, or to meet the one who will be special to us for the rest of our lives.
Some of us wait until we can go to bed for the night while others toss and turn and wait for it to be morning to get up and start a new day. We wait for bad news, good news, any news. We wait in check out lines, in the doctor's waiting room, for public transportation, for a room to heat up or cool down, for the computer to boot, the oven to heat, commercials to get over and traffic lights to turn green.
There is even a site that answers how much time a day we average in waiting. I can't imagine how that was figured out but don't plan to start counting the minutes of my own day given to waiting. Dr. Joyce Brothers answers questions regarding time spent waiting.
Published: June 16, 2009 08:54 pm Time spent waiting for nothing, or maybe something
By Johanna Mohringer Read a touching story here.
Waiting bothers some of us more than others. Some of us accept it more readily than the majority.
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