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Lighter Than You Started is a daily podcast offering gentle reflections on the news, the noise, and the small human moments that shape our days. With wry humour and quiet honesty, it’s not about fixing you, just about ending each day feeling a little lighter than when it began.
Hi I'm Keith and welcome to Lighter than You Started. It's Saturday and today I'd like to talk about waiting. Something most of us are extremely experienced at and and remarkably bad at. Waiting for the chattel. Waiting for the traffic lights.
Keith:Waiting in a queue. Waiting for somebody to arrive. Waiting for a website to load. Waiting for the microwave. Waiting for the person in front of us at the supermarket that this job was that yes they do have a loyalty card somewhere.
Keith:Waiting appears throughout an ordinary day usually in very small amounts. Thirty seconds here three minutes there ten minutes because somebody said they'd meet you at half past but their interpretation of half past appears to have a fairly generous margin of error. And I think we often treat those moments as though they're not really part of life. They're the bits between life. The inconvenient pauses before we can get back to whatever we're actually doing.
Keith:I'm just waiting. It's an interesting phrase. Just waiting. As though those minutes don't quite count. Nothing's happening.
Keith:We're waiting for something else to happen and because nothing is happening we often reach for something. These days usually our phone. The tube stops moving. Phone. The chessboard goes on.
Keith:Phone. Someone says I'll be five minutes. Phone. A website takes longer than approximately three seconds to load. We stare at it with the expression of someone who's been personally betrayed by modern technology.
Keith:Then possibly phone. Even though the thing that's loading is on the phone that's quite an achievement. Now there's nothing particularly wrong with this. Sometimes checking something while we wait is useful. Sometimes it's entertaining.
Keith:Sometimes the queue is twenty minutes long and we'd rather read something than study the back of someone else's coat. Perfectly reasonable but perhaps there's another possibility occasionally. What if waiting didn't always have to be escaped? What if those little bits of time counted too? Because when you think about it we spend quite a lot of life waiting for the next thing Not only in Tuesdays.
Keith:We wait for Friday. We wait for the weekend. Wait for a holiday. Wait for summer. These days in The UK wait for rain.
Keith:Wait for things to calm down. Wait until we're less busy. Wait until we drop more money. Wait until we've made the decision. Wait until somebody replies.
Keith:Wait until somebody changes. And there's always another point in the future that seems to contain the moment when life can properly resume. Once this is sorted. When things settle down. After next week.
Keith:When I've got through this. Some of those moments arrive and then quite often another one takes their place. Life has a slightly indoment habit of continuing while we're waiting for it to begin. Perhaps that's worth noticing. There's a difference of course between waiting and anticipation.
Keith:Anticipation can be lovely. Looking forward to something is part of the pleasure. A holiday doesn't only exist during the week we're away. Just the planning, the imagining, the countdown. Perhaps a completely unrealistic belief that this would be the holiday when we finally read all four books we've packed.
Keith:That's part of it too. But waiting can become different when the present moment is treated as something to get through. An obstacle between us and the bit we actually want. And maybe Saturday gives us a chance to notice that. Weekends can contain a surprising amount of waiting.
Keith:Waiting for other people to get ready. Waiting for a table. Waiting for food. Waiting for the rain to stop. Waiting for the match to start.
Keith:Waiting for children. Waiting for parents. Waiting for someone to say right should we go then? After everybody else has been ready for twenty minutes. And while we're waiting we should become irritated by the fact that nothing is happening.
Keith:But something is happening. We're alive during those minutes. We're standing somewhere, sitting somewhere. There are sounds around us, people, weather, a view, perhaps absolutely nothing remarkable and that's fine. Not every moment needs to reward our attention with a beautiful sunset and an important realisation.
Keith:Sometimes you're simply standing outside a cafe waiting for Dave. Dave is late. There may be no deeper meaning but those seven minutes still belong to your life. You don't get them refunded when Dave eventually arrives. Perhaps that's the shift.
Keith:Not I must make good use of this waiting time because then we've turned it into another productivity exercise. Three minutes waiting for the kettle. Excellent! Squats! We've tried the two emails.
Keith:Learn conversational Italian. By the time the tea's ready apparently we're supposed to have transformed ourselves. No. Perhaps waiting doesn't need to be productive either. Maybe it can simply be lived.
Keith:You could look out the window while the chattel bobs. Stand there. No agenda. Notice the weather. Hear whatever sounds are outside.
Keith:Maybe watch a bird doing something apparently very important with a hedge. Perhaps you won't think anything profound. Good. We've got enough profound thoughts. Sometimes watching a pigeon is perfectly adequate.
Keith:There's something slightly strange about our relationship with small amounts of time. If we have thirty minutes free we might think 'Lovely! Half an hour!' If we have three minutes unexpectedly free we often treat it as unusable too short to do anything so we fill it with input. But perhaps three minutes doesn't have to be useful. It can just be three minutes.
Keith:That's not wasted time it's time. I wonder whether some of our frustration with waiting comes from the feeling that we should be somewhere else. The queue should be moving faster. The person should already be here. The traffic lights should already have changed.
Keith:The food should have arrived. Reality is not currently matching our preferred timetable and sometimes there's something we can do about that. Choose another cue. Call the person. Leave earlier.
Keith:But quite often there isn't. The lights will change when it changes. The kettle will boil when it boils. The tube will move when the person at the front has finally rotated the voucher they definitely had a moment ago. Our irritation doesn't accelerate any of that.
Keith:It simply gives us irritation to experience while we wait. Perhaps there's a small question we could use. Can I be here while I wait? Not enjoy it. Not be grateful for it.
Keith:Not turn it into a mindfulness exercise involving 17 deliberate breaths and a gratitude journal. Just be here. Maybe notice your surroundings. Let your thoughts wander. Talk to the person you're with or do absolutely nothing for a minute.
Keith:There's another kind of waiting that's harder. Waiting for news. Waiting for results. Waiting for an answer that matters. Waiting for something uncertain.
Keith:That isn't the same as waiting for a kettle and I don't want to pretend that it is. Sometimes waiting is genuinely difficult. The mind reaches ahead because the theme we're waiting for matters. We want certainty and there may be very little we can do until it arrives. Perhaps even there though there's a gentle distinction available.
Keith:The answer belongs to Lighter. Your life is still happening now. You don't have to pretend you're not worried but perhaps awaiting doesn't have to consume every moment before the answer comes. You can still eat dinner, walk the dog, watch something ridiculous on television, talk about something else, laugh, sleep hopefully, live around the uncertainty. Because waiting for an answer and living your life aren't mutually exclusive.
Keith:We can do both. I think that's the broader thought I want to leave you with today. We spend so much time moving towards things the next appointment the next weekend the next stage the next answer the next version of our life and it's very easy to see the spaces in between as temporary. But most of life is probably made of spaces in between. The ordinary Tuesday.
Keith:The journey, the queue, the cup of tea before we leave, the five minutes before somebody arrives, the weeks between booking the holiday and going on it, The quiet evening when nothing particular happens. Perhaps these aren't gaps between the important parts perhaps they're the fabric holding the important parts together. So today if you find yourself waiting maybe notice the urge to hurry through it. You don't need to make the waiting useful. You don't even need to enjoy it.
Keith:Just remember this bit counts too. The minute before the kettle boils. The few minutes in the car. The queue. The pause.
Keith:The bit before whatever happens next. You're not waiting for your life to return You're already in it. Today's thought for you that waiting is part of your life too. You don't have to hurry through every moment that comes before something else. Thank you for sharing this moment with me and as always I hope you end today feeling lighter than you started.
Keith:Go gently and I'll see you tomorrow on the flip side. Lighter Than You Started is a think of something publishing production.