AGING IS AN ART: Wait! Be Present
I hate waiting!
I have protested. I have asked to speak to the manager. I have even been known to make a scene and scream. Ask the folks at our local Humboldt Medical Eye Associates or the over-worked and underpaid people at our Walgreen’s Pharmacy.
Because of my disdain for being kept waiting, I always arrive to appointments 15 minutes early. I do not want to be responsible for inflicting that kind of pain on anyone else. Those initial 15 minutes preceding my appointment are relaxing and meditative. However, the moment we shift to the other side of my appointment time — waiting time — I slowly move into hyper anxiety.
So, acknowledging that a reality of the aging process is that younger people insist on keeping us older folks waiting, I have devised a new strategy: an ingenious plan that turns “waiting time” into “being present time.” Let me illustrate.
I recently found myself doing back-to-back waiting at both the Safeway Pharmacy on Harris and my primary care physician at the Providence Family Clinic on Harrison. The two are a mere half-mile apart. I detail this because in a mere two hours, I traveled back and forth between them three times.
Providence could not get my thyroid prescription successfully into the pharmacy’s computer system.
“We don’t have your prescription in our computer,” said the pharmacist.
“We sent it,” said the doctor’s office.
The prerequisite “waiting” took place in each establishment. While waiting in the doctor’s office, however, I made eye contact with someone else who was waiting and, in that moment, we shared an energy that invited us both to be present.
Before I knew it, we were having a here-and-now conversation. We laughed. We joked. We allowed our energy to spread to others in that “waiting room” and soon we were a group of four, no longer waiting but being present with each other.
In rushing back to the pharmacy, I was eager to make eye contact with someone else. The woman in line behind me was a likely candidate. Our eyes met and she smiled. Lively conversation ensued. Soon the man in front of me joined our conversation. We were all now enjoying the energy of being present while waiting.
Being present is contagious and always trumps waiting.
The next time you find yourself waiting, reach out and make eye contact with someone. That contact might be your entry to being present.
John Heckel, Ph.D., is a retired HSU theatre and film professor with a doctorate in psychology, and a member of the Senior News Community Advisory Council. He is both present and does his waiting in Freshwater.
Email: jh2@humboldt.edu.
