Wait Loss: Teaching Our Kids the Value of Waiting

By Dennis Demanett

In the womb or in gridlock, waiting is the essence of our being. So what’s the rush?

While sitting in gridlock the other day, I was struck by the irony of traffic going nowhere fast. All the people in their shiny cars, motionless, in their rush to be somewhere else. Highways force us to wait. Oh, we can pull out our cell phones and make calls we could have made if we were sitting in the office. But the truth is, when we are in gridlock traffic, we have to wait whether we like it or not.

Humans, you see, were made for waiting. It is in the very essence of our being.

Why not recognize this? Every phase of human development reflects a process of assimilating, internalizing and then bringing forth a new, transformed quality. The waiting period may be short – as short as a breath – or long – as long as the nine months from conception to birth. The key to finding health in human existence is probably not only recognizing when a waiting period needs to take place, but also when it is over. If we could experience in childhood this kind of balance in waiting, our adult lives might be just a little bit less hectic.

Our Hurried Life

The greatest monster of our time was born in the industrial revolution, if not before: the monster of hurry. Hurry became instant gratification sometime in the 1980s, I reckon. The need to wait ceased to be recognized by parents, because they did not want to wait anymore. I see it. I want it. I gotta have it. Presto! I got it. In one breath, if you please. The funny thing is, whether we believe it or not, waiting will rear its head in some form or another: gridlock, illness, weather, growth processes of the physical body.