WAIT
This week I learned of an acronym that’s provided me an interesting practice. WAIT, or why am I talking? It was particularly enlightening after considering the parable of the fig tree last Sunday. After entering a period of forced waiting and realizing how desperately I wanted to fill in the gap of time with phone calls and words. Waiting in silence, frankly, can really suck.
In the work I do with teenagers, the guidance I’ve learned is to offer them opportunities that allow them to experience “safe discomfort.” This happens when, as a leader, I ask them open-ended, thought-provoking questions and don’t answer for them. Safe discomfort happens in that uncomfortable gap in time when an automatic, easy answer isn’t quickly offered just to get us past the silence. It takes time and space to process big questions without going for the quick response. But isn’t that the work of maturing, to move past easy answers to a space in which true wisdom might be discerned?
The space that’s recommended for teenagers to arrive at answers, or sometimes additional questions, on their own? One minute. That’s it. One. Yet, consider the last time you sat after a question for a minute, waiting for a response. If you can recall a time, it might bring up a lot of discomfort.
This awareness is important in our political discourse, too. In these heated and divisive times, people often experience something called “reactance.” This is a psychology term that refers to the inner resistance that can make people oppose something they may not even disagree with or understand fully because they feel talked down to or put on the spot emotionally.
Effective communication that moves toward genuine conversation and change requires that people feel included. This feeling builds trust, which in turn, allows for time for discernment. Again, however, it is necessary to WAIT—to stop the onslaught of dialogue long enough to ask, why am I talking, and to listen.
Why am I talking? And am I better waiting, discerning longer, listening, allowing understanding to expand first?
I’m considering using this acronym as a mantra. Wait. Wait. Let the silence do what the silence can. Because I do not want to find myself wondering, after speaking or acting, why I did.
