The waiting
Is the hardest part
I’m waiting on some publishing news right now and it’s killing me! I haven’t been in this position for a few years and I forgot just how weird it is to hurry up only to slow down and wait. There’s so much waiting in the creative process—waiting to figure out an idea, waiting to get feedback, waiting to finish a project—and it’s all hard to get through. What’s funny is, I wrote a whole book about waiting! And yet, I have to remind myself of how to get through it. Needs change over time and lessons are so easily forgotten. Spring is in the air, though, and I can feel that sunny energy coming.
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Why is waiting so distracting? Well, it’s because our brains can’t tell the difference between a bad result that has come to fruition and our anticipation of that bad outcome. Our imaginations are that powerful! That’s why we feel so much anxiety and despair from waiting. We fixate on not having the answer and on the potential bad outcomes, which is basically like living within the moment of getting a bad outcome for an extended period. That would stress anyone out.
Queue psychology is the study of waiting and the emotions people experience during that time. This is why music plays when you’re on hold. Without the distraction, the time you wait seems to stretch out indefinitely until it becomes unbearable. When you relieve the anxiety, the sensation of it taking forever fades. Explanations for the wait help. Schedules help. But sometimes, you can’t get a schedule or an explanation, and that’s when you have to get clever about tricking your brain out of the doom loop.
How I get through waiting
Here are the things I do to transform the suffering of waiting into a benefit:
