“Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”
― Khaled Hosseini
“The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.”
–-Andy Warhol
A quick Google search of “anticipation quotes” yields pages and pages of results, most of which fall into one of two camps, reflected in the quotes above.
Waiting is hard
OR
Waiting is pleasurable.
“Well,” you may say, “surely it depends on what you’re waiting for?” Anticipating a birthday or a vacation can be pleasurable—we may daydream about what fun we’ll have. Anticipating a root canal or an uncomfortable conversation is fraught; we may spend time thinking about how bad it’s going to be and how much we would rather experience something, anything, else.
The practice here, I think, is to remember that all anticipation is just that—thinking about something you think is going to happen in the future. The story you tell yourself about what the future will be is extremely powerful in its ability to affect it. If you tell yourself the uncomfortable conversation will end badly, you are creating the circumstances for that to happen. If you dread the presentation you have to give, you make it almost impossible to show up with power and impact.
It’s fun to look forward to things. It’s familiar to dread what we think will be unpleasant. What if we practice holding the future lightly, not making assumptions, and taking each experience as it comes?
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