They’re never friendly and happy places waiting rooms. No one visits a waiting room for any purpose; other than to wait of course.
I think what’s most frustrating though is usually the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. The outcome we’re waiting for it seems is always out of our control. We see people arrive after us and leave before us and wonder how they managed that! realising that we can’t do anything about it.
I find that you have to go into waiting rooms with a particular mindset to survive with sanity intact. It’s a bit like this is water with a difference. We know there is a reason for waiting…to see a doctor, to catch a flight, to do something worth waiting for, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference. We enter the waiting room as if it’s a competition, if it’s at the doctors it’s as if we deserve to be seen next, if it’s at an airport we deserve to board first. Some sort of pack mentality kicks in because we know there is no escape. We’re all here for the same thing and its me against you.
It’s too bad that that same mentality comes with us when we leave the waiting room. It’s just not as concentrated and therefore less pronounced but we still let the waiting room mentality dictate our existence. Maybe it’s because those pea-brained individuals that let themselves succumb to the waiting room of helplessness are in fact waiting for something to change. Waiting for that lucky break and until it just ‘happens’ to them they’ll continue with their primitive pack mentality.
Don’t wait, do. Our lives are not waiting rooms.