Saturday, May 23, 2009

Having To Wait

The dreadful condition of waiting, not-acting, and not-being-able-to-find-out is a hard one for me and for a lot of folks. I just ran across a list of stupid, energy-wasting things we tend to do to cope with this situation on "Tolerating Uncertainty."

1 Seeking excessive reassurance from others
2 List-making
3 Double checking
4 Refusing to delegate
5 Procrastination/avoidance
6 Distraction

These certainly are familiar to me. I saw this list and thought: Busted! I'm particularly fond of numbers 2 through 5. I think there's some value for me in seeing this list. It identifies a pattern I can be more careful to avoid.





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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What chafes me is I endow this thing or person for which I wait with this almost infallible power to change my life. And then the deadline passes, or something gets held up, and I realize how ridiculous this energy sapping anticipation is.

Peggy Payne said...

Anon, I know the feeling. And I often start to feel that the awaited thing doesn't matter, that the fact of waiting is more of a downer than any good news can overcome.

kenju said...

Peggy, I only thought there was something to do with the urinary tract - but nothing more.

Peggy Payne said...

I think that's tremendously useful, Kenju. Sorta narrows it down.

kenju said...

After I got the results, it was instantly clear to me how it all fit together. For purposes of that experiment, I didn't have to come up with a "diagnosis" pre-results. I only had to have a dream that was pertinent to the situation, and I think I did that in spades!

Peggy Payne said...

I think so too, Kenju.