W for WAIT

“WAIT” is defined by Webster’s New World College Dictionary as: v. 1. to remain inactive in readiness or expectation  2. to delay serving  3. to act as attendant or servant  4. to attend as a waiter  5. to be ready.

Being an innately, genetically inclined impatient person, I do not like the word wait as it throws my genes into a tailspin.  I offer the hypothesis that I was not born a person who can tolerate waiting.  I have meditated to achieve patience for this concept of “waiting” to happen for me to no avail.  My brain and body are hard-wired to act—not wait.  Ahhhh…my bad.

I see the benefits of waiting repeatedly.  Angry words are not thrown out haphazardly to wound if one waits and thinks about what they are about to say.  Decisions can be made that are beneficial by waiting until all the fact are in.  I KNOW this!  And yet I will impulsively, without waiting, spout off or make a snap decision that will come back to bite my butt!  Please tell me I’m not alone in this!  Or maybe I am and will just have to repeatedly try to train my mind and mouth to learn to wait?

I admire those who can wait, patiently and without rancor to see what the best strategy or plan would be.  Those persons are definitely right up there at the top of the ladder of respected people in my estimation.  Even as I have done these alphabetical blogs, I have had to work at waiting until I feel I will not offend by what I write because my inclination is to get on my soapbox and spout off.  Again, my bad.  But I hope my waiting and contemplating before I write has paid off so I won’t have people avoiding me or looking at me like I should be locked up!

Wait is a word that inspires me and rankles me to my core.  To me it is a paradoxical word.  IF I can wait, other options to a situation can present themselves and possibly prevent  a disaster.  IF I can wait on one thing to occur in a more natural manner, rather than my forcing it to happen NOW, it could be a beautiful experience, rather than a rushed and muddled one.  WHEN I WAIT, I feel good about decisions, knowing I didn’t rush headlong into them, jeopardize anyone else or myself, and know I did the best I could with as much information and input as I could acquire.  I also have probably avoided a major melt down and painful life lesson.

I cannot dispute or argue with the literal definition of wait.  And with writing this blog, I find my connotation of the word has changed.  My project will henceforth be to develop an ability to wait without fuming and becoming agitated.  Though I have to admit, it probably won’t help Christmas Eve as I wait for Christmas morning and presents.