Why we hate to wait

Whether it's waiting to visit family, waiting for a vacation or waiting for the end of a pandemic, waiting seems to have become the order of the day. "Waiting is lost time," says Munich-based time researcher Karlheinz Geissler, "and we charge for time in money."

The adage "time is money" hailed from Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, in his work Advice for Young Merchants, the credo of the Industrial Age.

It's no wonder that the concept of waiting has such a negative connotation. Waiting, according to the collective experience in Western culture, is considered an imposition. Anyone who has to wait for a delayed train or plane, an appointment or a free table in a restaurant, "becomes impatient, often angry and aggressive," writes Cologne-based author André Bosse. "Apparently, it doesn't work to see waiting as a gift of time," Bosse analyzes. "Instead of enjoying it, it becomes torture." 

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Why we dislike waiting

Working with art historian Brigitte Kölle, Berlin-based cultural scientist Claudia Peppel published a book titled The Art of Waiting in 2019. It combines works by contemporary photographers and graphic artists with literary texts, essays and interviews, providing a multifaceted exploration of the phenomenon of biding our time. Peppel says "many waiting rooms are a connection between space and time" and, she adds, "are inhospitably designed." This is yet another reason why we often so begrudgingly wait. 

Whether in the waiting room at the doctor's office or in a conference room at work, waiting often makes one feel as if they are being controlled, and for good reason. "Whoever makes others wait has power over them," writes art historian Johannes Vincent Knecht in Peppel's book.

Time researcher Geissler agrees. Making people wait, he says, "becomes an instrument of power." When we wait, we directly experience the passing of time, says Peppel. "On the one hand, we complain about not having enough time and often wish we had this idleness, these pauses," says the psychologist. "But the moment someone else makes us wait, we find this very, very unpleasant."

Waiting in the former Soviet Union

In former East Germany waiting was "almost a principle of life," says Peppel. It could take years before the car one ordered was delivered. Building materials were often out of stock, as were many everyday items. This economy of scarcity led to lines of people waiting desperately in front of empty shops for the goods they desired.

Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin described the effect this had on society in his novel, The Snake, which he published in 1985 while in exile in Paris. In it, he describes a typical waiting scenario in the former Soviet Union. It begins with the question "Comrade, who is the last in line?" He describes how standing in line closely with others for an entire day naturally involved learning a lot about their lives. There was gossiping, quarreling, even flirting or holding the spot for someone next to you who has gone to get a bite to eat. Then there was always plenty of conversation about the goods one was waiting for: where did they come from? Will there be enough to go around?

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What's behind the wait?

It is true that waiting is something we do every day. But waiting is not just waiting. Take, for example, a musician waiting for his turn to play notes in a score. His perception is as sharpened as that of the hunter tracking its prey; he is not simply idle. Religious believers wait for the coming of Christ, for example, while some of us wait for better times, the end of the world or for a baby to be born. Children wait with bated breath for their birthday or Christmas, often counting down the days. For some, waiting is a gift of anticipation, a promise that will bring a sense of fulfillment and make you feel good, even if that feeling is fleeting.

"Our society has relatively few areas of life that are not infected by the time-is-money notion," says Geissler. "In other cultures, the experience of time is completely different." In Peppel's book, Father Frido Pflüger, head of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Berlin, reports how he became familiar with a completely different understanding of time in parts of Africa, where instead of asking for the time, one might ask "when is the time ripe?" "And when the time is ripe, then something happens. But when the time is not yet ripe, nothing happens," says Pflüger. There's even a saying: "You have the clocks; we have the time."

Yet according to Geissler, at the end of the day, it's really about the concept of waiting itself, and the promise it can hold if you look at it in a certain light. "How I experience time depends on what I associate with waiting," he says. "We assume that we organize time ourselves, yet waiting is actually something where time comes to you and you ask: What's in store for me: in experiences, sensations, possibilities?"