Suffering While Waiting Is Optional

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Many years ago, I sat on a railway platform waiting for a train that was running hours late.

At first, I was annoyed. Then restless. Then impatient. I kept checking the clock, as if staring at it could make the train come faster. It didn’t. The train didn’t care about my anxiety.

Around me, people reacted differently. Some paced back and forth. Some complained loudly. Some kept asking the staff for updates. A few just sat quietly reading a newspaper, completely at peace.

The train was late for everyone. But not everyone was suffering the same amount.

That day, I learned something it took me years to fully understand: Waiting is unavoidable. Suffering while you wait is optional.

Life is a lot like that delayed train. We spend much of it waiting. Waiting for exam results, promotions, our kids to grow up, our health to improve, opportunities, recognition, answers. Sometimes we’re just waiting for life to become what we imagined it would be.

Strangely, no one ever teaches us how to wait. Schools teach us to achieve. Companies teach us to plan. Experts teach us to move faster. But waiting? We’re on our own.

Looking back, some of the most important parts of my life were really just waiting rooms that looked like ordinary days. Nothing seemed to be happening. No progress, no applause, no milestones. But something was happening quietly, underneath the surface. Like a seed underground. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t growing.

There’s a simple idea in management: when results are delayed, look at the process, not just the outcome. Farmers figured this out long ago. After planting seeds, they don’t dig them up every morning to check on the roots. That would be absurd. Yet many of us do exactly that with our own lives. We plan, then panic. We work, then worry. We dig up our hopes again and again just to see if they’re growing yet.

Old wisdom reminds us that life moves in rhythms, not schedules. Night follows day. Spring follows winter. Rivers reach the ocean without rushing. Everything has its season. Only humans try to force a mango to ripen in January.

Maybe that’s why waiting feels so uncomfortable. It challenges our belief that we’re in control. We secretly think that if we worry enough or check our phones enough, life will speed up. But life has never responded well to pressure from an impatient mind.

I once met a young professional who felt stuck. He had worked hard and done everything right, but the breakthrough he expected hadn’t come. He asked me, “What strategy should I use for this phase of life?”

It seemed like a simple question. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized most people ask the wrong question. Most people ask, “How long will I have to wait?” Very few ask, “Who am I becoming while I wait?”

That second question changes everything. Waiting isn’t empty time. It’s preparation time. Bamboo spends years building its roots before it ever shoots up toward the sky. Life often works the same way. The growth you can’t see comes first. The growth you can see comes later.

So how do we make peace with waiting? Not through big philosophies, but through a few simple habits.

First, try this exercise. Take a sheet of paper and draw two columns. In the first, write down what’s outside your control. In the second, write down what’s within your control. The first list is usually long. The second list holds what really matters: your effort, attitude, learning, relationships, health, and the quality of what you do each day. This small exercise shifts your focus from helplessness to responsibility, from anxiety to awareness.

Second, when a delay frustrates you, don’t ask “When will this happen?” Ask instead, “What is this waiting period trying to teach me?” Maybe it’s patience. Maybe resilience. Maybe trust, humility, a new skill, or the courage to let go of an old plan. Life rarely wastes a season of waiting. We’re usually just too impatient to notice the lesson.

One small habit helps too. Spend five quiet minutes each day with no phone, no screen, no task. Just sit and watch your thoughts. Notice how quickly your mind jumps to tomorrow. Then gently bring it back to today. You might discover that the real challenge isn’t waiting for life. It’s learning to be present while life happens.

Today, whenever I find myself waiting, I think back to that railway platform. The train eventually arrived, the way trains usually do. But the real journey had already started, the moment I stopped fighting the waiting.

I’ve learned that fulfillment isn’t only found in arrivals. It’s also hidden in the platforms, in the pauses, in the uncertain space between one chapter and the next.

Maybe waiting isn’t life standing still. Maybe it’s life moving at a rhythm we just haven’t learned to appreciate yet. And maybe our deepest growth doesn’t happen when we’re rushing forward, but when we’re quietly being prepared for what’s coming next.

So the next time life makes you wait, don’t just ask, “How much longer?” Ask instead, “What is this season preparing me for?”

The answer might arrive long before the train does.

Life isn’t measured only by where we end up. It’s also measured by the rhythm with which we travel there.