The Art of balancing Waiting and Action
The overwhelming pressure to act… at the price of our inner peace
In a world where time seems to be the most precious resource of all, we’ve all developed an overwhelming intolerance to “waiting”.
Companies and entire markets leverage or even exploit our urge to get goods and services as fast as possible. In many cases, the ability to deliver quickly is vital to success (e.g. medical emergencies) or at least differential to the purchasing experience. Amazon, Airbnb, Uber are prime examples of corporations delivering products and services in ways that are faster and cheaper than ever before.
In lean manufacturing, “waiting” is on the black list of the “7 types of waste”: any material or component that sits idle is not getting transformed hence there’s no added value to the product → that time is wasted.
From a business standpoint, all these examples make perfect sense.
Indeed, there are signals everywhere that explicitly or subliminally say: “Waiting is no good”, “Gotta get things done”, “Time is money” and the likes.
I believe this mindset is predominantly positive. The ability to take action is often a sign of the awareness that we are responsible for our own destiny and the outcomes of our lives. I do endorse this attitude.
However, stressing the importance of speed has created an excessively negative image of “waiting”. I believe this belief deserves to be questioned or, at least, scrutinized. In the end, the experience of waiting is subjective but it is also an inherent element of life that we all need to deal with, one way or another. Also, we could recognize the value of a virtue that we don’t celebrate enough nowadays: patience.
The Genie in the lamp
How would we feel if we got anything we desire and strive for… in no time?
Rub the lamp and there is the genie! 3 wishes, ask anything which is in your radar screen and in the “possible-to-unlikely” range (your bucket list might do the job too). What are you going to ask for?
- A new house?
Do you really wanna spare yourself from the pleasure of imagining it, planning it, evaluating the alternatives, furnishing it? - Getting your ex back with you?
Really? Wouldn’t you want THAT to be spontaneous? Also, there are probably a bunch of good reasons why he/she’s a “ex”, sure you want to reverse that? - A promotion?
I thought you wanted to get it because you’re the best candidate for the job…
Don’t take me wrong: I am not saying there is nothing we wouldn’t want to receive as a gift, effortlessly. But I think we all agree that the things we achieve in life have value for us because we worked on them, we made efforts, sacrifices and, why not, enjoyed the process itself. You get my point.
Waiting is what makes us eventually savor the outcomes of our efforts.
When the results meet or exceed our expectations, we experience joy, bliss, good vibes… and a sweet release of tension. We laugh and we celebrate. The sense of accomplishment and fulfillment pervades us. For a little while.
Then we can start waiting for the next significant event to happen.
Darn it.
A paradigm shift
There is no such thing as waiting: there are only things we do and thoughts we have. This applies to both short and long-term objectives, and their respective time frames. What we call ‘waiting’ is in fact just a mental construct, because when we’re standing in line ‘waiting’ for our turn, what we actually doing is looking around (or most probably, at our cell phones), talking to someone, scratching our heads… or simply thinking.
The relevant question here though is not “What?”, but “How?”.
In other words, how are we feeling during this whole time that we call “waiting”. Are we peaceful? Can we accept the situation as it is, as long as there’s nothing we can do to change it? Are we able to reframe the context and produce something positive out it?
“When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you’re waiting for the elevator — instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.” ― Eckhart Tolle
My journey into unlearning the negative feelings associated to “waiting” got a massive boost three years ago when I had to wait 5 hours for my flight connection, after I had lost my scheduled flight to Budapest (full story here). My realization was simple: there is always an opportunity to transform a potentially “idle” situation into something constructive or, at least, positive.
Today, when I find myself slightly disturbed by delays, traffic jams, standing lines, I often bring my attention to my breath, try to be present and connect to my inner state of peace. In that very moment, stillness is my teacher.
Waiting vs Action
“If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.” ― Sun Tzu
Sometimes we get stuck into situations in which we don’t know whether the best option is taking action or simply ‘sit on the bank of the river’, allowing things to naturally unfold. Examples:
We feel weird calling or writing to our new date because we don’t want to be perceived as pushy or needy. But we also want to be able to express our feelings, for example our enthusiasm for a potential new relationship. Many of us have learned that if we are balanced in doing so, we can produce positive energies and help ourselves strengthening the connection.
We don’t want to push our art through the available channels because somehow we expect an audience to ‘materialize’… we seem to think: “If it’s good enough, somebody will notice.”
I believe that the outcomes of inspiration need to be nurtured. Art needs to be nestled and proactively exposed to the public. It won’t just self-promote and find its way to popularity (or if it does, you might not be of this world anymore).
Action is key. No doubt.
However, the ability to peacefully let things unfold is a skill as well. We can only influence a small portion of the outside world, through our behavior. But all the rest is an incredibly complex and intertwined matrix that need its time to propagate the effects of our action through its threads.
I believe in this attitude lies an important skill: it’s the art of taking action without investing emotionally on expectations, particularly those around timing.
In this respect, I love the concept expressed by Jim Collins in his ‘Good to great’, with what he calls ‘The Stockdale Paradox'. In its short version, it says:
Confront the brutal facts. Yet never lose faith.
Stockdale was the highest ranked United States military officer in a prisoner-of-war camp during the Vietnam War.
Imprisoned and tortured for eight years, Stockdale was denied any prisoner rights or an estimated release date. He was aware he may not even survive and be able to return home.
When asked how he survived and dealt with the uncertainty, Stockdale shared: “I never lost faith in the end of the story… I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event in my life”.
There are a couple of striking elements in this story.
1. Stockdale was not passively hoping or waiting. He made enormous efforts to keep up the morale of the other prisoners. As an example, he invented an elaborate communication system so that prisoners could communicate with each other tapping their hands, to help reduce the sense of isolation that their captors wanted to generate. He helped others. He created a sense of purpose. He led by example.
2. When asked who did not make it out, Stockdale remarked, “the optimists”. And went on explaining: “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
I believe this story, although being extreme, epitomizes the balance between waiting and action. A lesson that we can all relate to and learn.
Face the facts, as tough as they are. Don’t set timelines on things you cannot control. At the same time, retain faith that you will prevail, while acting with purpose.
Most of the times, life seems to ask us to wait in much more trivial situations.
These are just warm-up exercises for us to learn how to act or simply to look at certain circumstances with a different perspective. The choice is ours.
Vale
Write me at valeriano.donzelli@gmail.com or follow me on Medium, Facebook or Twitter.
