Waiting Room

A fair slice of life is spent sitting, waiting.

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According to a recent study Americans sit down way too much. We’ve been dubbed, “the couch potato nation.“ Ouch. But a basic remedy to our inactivity is to move.

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“A single bout of physical activity can sharpen your mind, reduce your anxiety, lower your blood pressure, improve your sleep and strengthen your body’s ability to convert blood sugar into energy,” says the study. Good to know. Good to move and yet we sit and we wait because we have to and we’re often instructed to. Everything we want and need doesn’t happen in a minute—doesn’t happen on our timeline just because we wish it. Drat that grown-up reality.

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We’ve become particularly accustomed to waiting in a seated position because that’s the most convenient for those we’re waiting for, right? They politely say, “ please take a seat.“ Or we do so willingly perhaps because we’re just tired and ready to take a load off. We’ve transferred that physical position, metaphorically, to other “wait-lines” in life. Other queues where we’re waiting for our ship to come in or for the sun to come out (tomorrow maybe?) or for our prince to come or for the deal to close.

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Old Time seems to run on his own schedule not ours. Waiting for that check to come feels like forever. The nine months of prenatal supplements and prepping the nursery don’t fly by at all—they drag on. The thirty minutes waiting to hear the test results . . . an eternity.

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So we wait. We take a seat. But how about maximizing the moments spent on hold? How about taking a stand instead of a seat while we wait? The world still turns and life goes on for all around us while we hold our breath and wait. How about we just exhale a bit and move our minds while we take a stand for something in the waiting? Maybe something worthwhile. How ‘bout it?