HMN 2025: death of patience

Not long ago, he was caught checking his cell phone in front of a stop sign.

Yes, I see. stop sign.

I sat there, mindlessly scrolling, waiting for it to turn green. Until I remember: Oh, signs don’t change color.

For a moment I laughed at myself. Then the humor disappeared. Why has sitting still gotten so bad that even the moment of standing at an intersection is unbearable?

And it wasn’t just that isolated moment. It’s easy to get distracted while waiting for your coffee, in a boring Zoom meeting, or even while brushing your teeth. Second life gives me a feeling of pause. Pull, scroll, swipe, refresh, repeat.

The problem is this: I know I am not alone.

We all have become terrible at waiting. And what does it cost? It’s bigger than we think.

age of impatience

Impatience is no longer a simple problem. This is the new default setting.

4 seconds. This is the time it waits for the website to load before the stimulus begins. After 10 seconds, most of us are already out.

96%. This is the number of Americans who have admitted to knowingly consuming food or drinks so hot that they burned their mouths, demonstrating the widespread willingness to risk personal discomfort due to impatience.

1 minute (or less). That’s how long most of us are willing to wait before hanging up the phone.

We have been trained, and we have trained ourselves, to expect everything immediately. Amazon ships within hours. YouTube videos load in milliseconds. Streaming services start up quickly, never stop, and jump straight to the next episode before you can blink.

I think the wait is broken. It’s like a design flaw in modern life.

But the defect is not something to wait for.

It’s inside us.

Why does waiting feel so hard?

Stillness makes us squirm. It leaves room for thoughts that we don’t want to face at all.

Am I actually happy? Why do I feel stuck? What am I running away from while being so busy?

We treat waiting as if it’s just a waste of time, but that’s wrong. Waiting is often like a mirror that shows us what is really there when the noise subsides.

Maybe that’s why we avoid it so desperately.

Instead of sitting in discomfort, we try anything to break the silence. There’s nothing easier than pulling out your phone to stave off a fleeting moment of anxiety.

But what I’ve seen is that avoiding discomfort doesn’t erase it. It creeps on the edge of distraction, waiting for the moment when we can no longer escape it.

The questions don’t go away. They only get bigger and bigger. And based on our experience of waiting, we do not avoid uncomfortable moments.

We are missing out on life.

what we are really losing

Every time we give up to avoid a little waiting, we give up more than time. We are losing the things that make life most meaningful.

• anticipation. Do you remember counting down the days until something exciting would happen – a vacation, a vacation, a reunion, etc.? The wait was not wasted. That was part of the joy. Without it, life becomes flattened into a series of unforgettable moments intertwined by “what happens next.”
• creativity. Neuroscience shows that boredom activates the brain’s central problem-solving network. Is there any boredom? There is no breakthrough.
• clarity. Waiting gives us space to notice what is bubbling beneath the cloudy surface. Without it, the ideas and truths we need will be buried in distraction.
• resilience. Strangely enough, sitting with discomfort increases the strength we need to take on the bigger pauses in life: sadness, rejection, uncertainty. If we can’t handle a boiling kettle, how are we supposed to handle the long pauses that really test us?

Even driving, once a rare moment of relaxation, was completely taken away from me. Traffic lights are for Instagram. Traffic jams are for emails. Every pause is filled, and we are suffocating with noise. So when will it arrive? exhale?

how to stop running

To be honest, I feel absolutely terrible about this.

I still instinctively grab my phone when brushing my teeth. Because I don’t feel anything for two minutes.

But there is absolutely nothing I would do instead. All you have to do is brush your teeth. For two minutes, all that remained was the whirring sound of a toothbrush, a rhythmic hum, and a strange simplicity. one One at a time.

It’s awkward, but I stay still for those 60 seconds. It’s a start, a work in progress, but it’s something that slows the world down, focuses our attention, and sometimes leads to flashes of clarity.

Here are some other things you can try to be intentional about rather than perfect:

1. Replace Wait with Reset. Instead of filling all of your pauses, use some as resets. Are you waiting in annoying lines? Check it out for yourself. What more do you need? Less? What’s missing? It’s a tiny habit, but it can help you figure out what’s hiding behind your urge to get distracted.
2. Turn boredom into abundance. only try hard Resist the urge to scroll and let your mind wander. Sometimes it can lead to ridiculous results. But sometimes that’s where the best ideas come from.
3. Transform pause into presence. Even the smallest moments can be an opportunity to listen. Waiting at a traffic light? Notice the sky, the sounds of traffic, and your own breathing. It sounds trivial, but it has its basis. It reminds us that life is not just about the future. It’s about something now.

where life appears

Waiting in silence is not a waste. This is where everything we’ve been running away from finally catches up with us.

Ideas not heard because of the noise. The clarity we were looking for. The truth we were too busy to see.

Life doesn’t just happen in big, flashy, planned moments. It’s built right into the pause, the gap between everything we rush about.

So the next time you’re stuck somewhere with a string of lights and a painful brushing of teeth, resist the temptation to fill that space with distractions. Pause for a moment and let it do what you intend.

Because waiting is not where life stops. Waiting is where life happens.