Waiting

I hate to wait. A favorite cliché used by anyone who has ever served in the military is “Hurry up and wait”.  I’m not sure if the cliché originally came from someone in the military but it is hard to imagine thinking of a better example of “Hurry up and wait”. Sorry for those who have not been in the military and are waiting for an explanation or an example. That will have to wait for another time.  

When I set up this blog I set the security settings to ‘Only people I invite’. I don’t care who reads it but I just can’t see it being of much interest to anyone outside of my immediate family. I sent invitations to family members who would like read my posts. I got tired of waiting for a response to my invitation so I changed the settings to ‘Anybody’. I will never get a response from ‘Anybody’, but at least I don’t have to wait.

While I was driving to a FedEx office in Harrisburg to pick up a package I had been waiting for I was thinking that I need to learn to accept waiting better than I have in the past.  When I arrived at FedEx there was only one employee working. She was working on what appeared to be a large print job for a customer but the printer was not cooperating.  She was pushing buttons, opening and closing the paper drawer, removing rolls of paper and then reloading them. After a few minutes she finally asked me if I was here to pick up a package.  I said “Yes I am”.   I felt a glimmer of hope.  In my mind I was sure she would put the previous customer job on hold while she took one minute to give me my package.  No such luck.  After hearing my reply she returned to pushing buttons and loading and unloading rolls of paper. I’m not sure why she asked.  I was beginning to get annoyed. Luckily before I said something harsh to this woman I caught myself and held my tongue. Then I thought to myself “Crap, learning to wait is going to be harder than I thought.”

I’m hardly alone in my distaste for waiting.  In the 1960’s when I was just a child the American Food Distributers introduced a product call ‘TV Dinners’. This novel product was marketed as a way to provide a complete hot meal that could be put directly into the oven and be ready to serve in no more than a mere 45 minutes. You could even eat directly off of the disposable tray.  No more dishes to wash just throw the trays away.

TV dinners never really caught on. I can remember having them on rare occasions. To the best of my memory there were a grand total of 3 different variations of the TV dinner. There were probably a few others but that is all I can remember.  ‘Salisbury Steak’, ‘Fried Chicken’, and ‘Pot Pie’.  Anyone who is old enough to have actually eaten  any of these American delicacies of years gone by would have to admit  that to actually eat the TV dinner one would have to be willing to sacrifice a good deal  of taste in exchange for the convenience.  

Not until the invention of the microwave oven were food distributers able to deliver the convenience that consumers wanted but did not find with TV dinners. As opposed to the 45 minutes TV dinner the consumer only has to wait minutes for a complete meal that even tastes good. Countless inventions and products have been made in our times that eliminated the need to wait.

Of course nothing has eliminated wait time more than the internet.  A product manufactured in California can be bought, shipped and delivered to the consumer in New York in two or three days. If the consumer is willing to spend a couple more dollars it will be there tomorrow.

I bought a Kindle about a year ago. A Kindle is an electronic book capable of holding literally thousands of books on a portable device that weighs only a few ounces.  If I am talking to a friend about a book that sounds pretty good to me I can use the Kindle that is connected to the internet and download the book to my kindle right wherever I happen to be in just a few seconds.

One final example from the internet is email. A letter in an email can be sent and delivered to just about  anywhere in the world to anyone with a computer or any type of smart phone  in a just a few micro seconds, virtually instantaneously from the perspective of the sender. No stamp, no paper, no wait. 

While shopping at a local department store I was looking for stationary. I wanted to write a special note to my wife. I didn’t want to send her an email. I couldn’t find any.  I never actually asked an employee if they had any but it was obvious they did not carry it anymore. I have six teen age daughters living in my house. I thought surely one of them must have stationary. When I got home I told them how I couldn’t find any at the store and asked if I could borrow a couple sheets of stationary from one of them. There was a pause as they looked at me with blank faces until one of them said “What’s stationary”?  “Never mind” I said. Now I know why I couldn’t find any stationary.

This is starting to get long as usual. I’m well aware of what the reader is thinking by now. “I can’t wait until this is over”.  I feel your pain.  I can’t wait until I finish writing this. So with that in mind I am finally ready to come to a conclusion.

I will use two well-known clichés to put an end to all of this waiting. They are “Practice makes perfect” and “Be careful what you pray for”.

Most people would agree that to become good at any task it is of mind or body.  Also they would agree that that in the beginning the practice must be on fairly simple tasks. The simple task is practiced until it is mastered and only then can we begin to work on the more difficult tasks.  I believe that in today’s world we no longer have to wait for most of the simple things. There is no end in sight to man’s passion to eliminate the need to wait. But all these things that we no longer have to wait for were practice to prepare us to wait for much more important things.  There will always be things we have to wait for.  All good things are worth waiting for. Oops, I just let in another cliché. But it is true and mankind will never eliminate the need to wait for things that are good and meaningful.

 “Be careful what you pray for” is usually used in a light hearted or even humorous context. But as we know all clichés are at least based on some truth.  If you ever pray to God asking for him to give you patience, what you most likely will receive is a chance to practice.  Be careful what you pray for.