Waiting and worrying | Seth’s Blog

It’s easy for us to choose to worry. The world is upside down, the slog continues, a tragedy unevenly but widely distributed.

Worry takes a lot of effort. And worry, unlike focus, learning or action, accomplishes nothing of value.

And, at the same time, due to the time-horizon of the pandemic, it’s also tempting for us to simply wait. To wait for things to get back to normal. But all the time we’re spending waiting (for a normal that is unlikely to be just like it was) is time we’re not spending learning, leading and connecting.

Waiting is, sort of by definition, a waste of time. But time is scarce, so wasting it is a shameful act.

If we decided to simply reduce our waiting and worrying allocation by 50%, just imagine how much we could discover, how many skills we could learn, how dramatically attitudes could shift.

We can still wait (even though time will pass either way). And we can still worry (even though it doesn’t do any good). But perhaps we can figure out how to do it less.