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Ok, Then... #2


Waiting makes me uncomfortable. Those dead minutes before the start of something make me fidgety in a funny sort of way.

Case in point - we were at the theater on Friday afternoond waiting for the start of a movie. 8 minutes until lights dim. My first impulse? Pull out my mobile phone and look for an email. There was nothing that grabbed my attention, so I plowed through a level on Candy Crush. Four minutes left - what do I do next?

The discomfort around waiting comes from a feeling of anxiety that precious minutes will be lost forever due due to the lag between arrival and next event. Ironically, tapping on a mobile phone without purpose went about wasting the time anyway. It might be better to turn that 8 minutes into more meaningful time. Like meditation. Or talking to my wife. Or capturing the essence of the moment in a poem (a potential utility of the mobile phone vs. a time-waster).

So there you go. Dead minutes don't need anxiety - they need appreciation for the respite they offer from a packed schedule. And mobile phones are the new kind of smoking, the addictive but maybe not-so-healthy way to steal a few minutes away from whatever you are doing.


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