I don’t mind waiting when I know that waiting will get me the result I am looking for. For instance, I don’t mind waiting for a tomato vine to grow or for the sun to go down so I can sip tea in my backyard while the shadows deepen. I can wait while Irish oatmeal is cooking (especially if I can smell a bit of mint tea brewing, too) and I can wait while my wife prepares tabouleh and I can wait while the water heats up again so I can take a long hot shower … especially if I can savor a cup of freshly-brewed coffee while I wait.I think that most of us agree that a certain amount of waiting is just part of life. Some days bring more waiting, some less, but few are without their idle moments. We wait for the traffic light to change or for the lady in front of us to unload her shopping cart to be tallied. We ask a question and then wait for the answer, however trivial.
Dispensing large sums of money will shorten the wait for some things but others, like the sun or that tomato, shrug away all of our impatient importunings. So we, unable to do otherwise, simply accept them or even come to welcome them. Waiting, like most things, can become an art form and add pleasure to our lives and extend the years we have available in which to practice the skill of waiting.
Over the years I’ve gotten better about relaxing, watching and waiting patiently.
But I do have difficulty waiting when the outcome is uncertain — especially if the outcome is in the hands of others whose levels of motivation can not be known.
Right now I’m waiting on a handyman who was going to fix my furnace. When I spoke with him face to face, he sounded like he was the owner of the company. When my wife called to see why he didn’t show up today, the person answering the phone described him as a handyman.
In either case, tomorrow makes him three days late.
Shall I order the part and replace it myself? Shall I await his convenience and let him install it? He told me nearly a week ago that he had already ordered the part and that he expected to be back on Monday to replace it. I agreed to the (reasonable) price for the part and the (somewhat inflated) price of the labor.
That would seem to have been motivation enough.
But maybe not this time. If I cancel, he will be stuck with the task – and expense – of returning the blower motor. But if I wait too long, I won’t have a working furnace when I need it. More than that … I need to know if the blower is the only part that needs servicing. There might be other things wrong with it. Possibly the blower motor isn’t the source of the problem at all.
Well, Monday was a holiday — Columbus Day, to be exact — so I’m willing to give him a ‘bye’ on Monday even though everybody else around here seemed to be open and working.
But all of Tuesday and all of Wednesday have slid silently by with no word from Mr. Carlysle.
– Jude the Patient