Dare to Reflect: The Waiting Room

The moment at which you can first pinpoint a major goal or change of direction brings an acute ecstasy. As if emerging from a fog, you suddenly understand why you feel unfulfilled and what you can do to change it. You know that action precedes achievement, and you’re willing to put in the work to get to where you want to go. But what happens when the problem isn’t you, but your timing? When you show up fifteen minutes early for the appointment, but still end up waiting for your doctor to finish lunch?

Say you’re dying to graduate and begin your career, but you need a degree to get paid for the same work you’re already doing at your internship. Or you dread going into the office every day, but you dread the idea of moving back in with your parents even more—the likely outcome if you were to quit before securing another opportunity. Or you want to move to a new city, but a year-long lease means that your life is mobile only in theory, and the gatekeeper is your grizzled landlord and his judgmental cat. You know what you need to do - perhaps you’re even doing it! - but the precise timing is out of your hands.

You could resign yourself to misery until the wait is over. You could skate through your classes, contributing the bare minimum and resenting the constraint that homework puts on your time. You could check out at your job, allowing the quality of your work to suffer and sabotaging your chance at a strong recommendation. You could withdraw from your friendships, wishing you were elsewhere and knowing that you will be soon enough. You could spend your time in the waiting room flicking listlessly through an ancient People magazine, reading up on homes that you can’t live in and clothes that you can’t buy.

Or you could hurl yourself into your present reality. You could engage in your classes, initiate compelling discussions, and perhaps discover a new interest or skill along the way. You could view your mediocre job as an opportunity to hone your talents in a safe place, putting yourself in a better position to pounce when the stars finally align. You could consider every interaction to be an end in itself, whether or not it blossoms into a lifelong friendship. You could use your time in the waiting room to actually apply for that new job.

Writing off entire portions of your life is dangerous. Once you settle into a “layover” mentality, you not only resign yourself to boredom and discontent, but you also slow your own progress. Recognize that immediate action isn’t always possible, and see the interim’s lack of consequence as a freedom rather than a constraint. Invest yourself emotionally in the present. Reap the mutual returns that your efforts will generate. And instead of getting lost in that tattered People magazine, create a reality that's worthy of its pages.

—Emma Aubry Roberts