What Are You Waiting For?

Said the Id to the Ego.

Oh, just in case you didn’t know…. Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. The super-ego can stop you from doing certain things that your id may want you to do.

So what are you waiting for? The question comes up again and again.

Perhaps I learned this unusual habit? Maybe I was trained to wait.

In proper society when one enters a room, the host introduces them. To meet someone else in the party, one must ask an elder or one of the families to introduce you. Otherwise you can view the vision that is unattainable. Even in the most sophisticated occasions we are separated by name, rank, and position.

Then one must learn how to make the move. You see someone who you feel you have made visual contact with. You know what I mean. You are sitting at a bar and you look over at another table at an attractive person and she looks back with a smile and a gleam in her eye. It doesn’t take much to get your attention. You try to go back to whatever you were doing before but you keep getting distracted. The second glance is like an invitation, so what are you waiting for?

I remember at dances how the boys would line one wall and the girls would line the opposite wall waiting to see who would make the first move. Once one of us crossed over the party began and we all loved it.

So what are you waiting for? The question returns again and again and again, but the answer is what are you looking for?

The to-do list can wait till tomorrow or the day after or even to the next person because the basics are taken care of. The day-to-day life functions are steady and do not need any adjustments. Even most of the wants, needs, and desires have been accomplished so the question is; what are you waiting for?

Maybe it is like dating when you wait for the other person to invite you to become more familiar with their body? Maybe it is waiting until you have enough knowledge or experience or tenure with the company to ask for that raise? Maybe it is a fear of failing or a reaction to success.

I was always accused of not being spontaneous. I evaluate, contemplate, and ponder a thought before I act. Sometimes I wait too long and miss it. So what are you waiting for?

Perhaps it is a sense of self-doubt or a history of failure, but I know I over analyze problems. Even shopping, I see something I might “want” or “need” but do not buy it at the time. Instead I go home and think about it. Do I really need it? Will it really accomplish my list of necessaries?

Then I go back after convincing myself the purchase could be made logically in my mind, only to find that it had already been sold. I kick myself for the lost opportunity but rationalize it by the thought of next year’s items.

I think, now and then, about being spontaneous and traveling to a different place to meet another person totally unknown to me to start a new adventure. I could do this on-line and not know if I’m talking to a cute chick or a prison cellmate, so I wander on and don’t rock the boat as some say.

I never knew when things that changed my life were happening probably because I was waiting. So what are we waiting for?

Water to boil? Download a file? Getting there? These are all things we wait for. Somehow we accomplish the wait.