I was at a coffee shop last week, waiting for a friend. He was late—15 minutes past our agreed time—and I had nothing to do. No headphones, no book, low battery on my phone. Just me, a cappuccino, and time.
At first, I felt restless. My fingers twitched toward my phone out of habit. I looked around, tried to look busy, pretended to scroll through non-existent notifications. But then I stopped. I just… sat. And waited.
And then something odd happened: my brain woke up.
I started observing things. The woman at the counter rehearsing a breakup speech under her breath. The guy in the corner sketching his shoe over and over in a notebook. The barista humming some indie song I hadn’t heard in years. I noticed the light hitting the coffee machine in this almost cinematic way, like a scene from a Wes Anderson movie.
I remembered things—random things. A dream I’d had the night before. A joke my grandfather used to tell. A friend I hadn’t spoken to in years and suddenly wanted to call.
By the time my friend arrived, breathless and apologetic, I wasn’t annoyed. I was… grateful? I had just experienced something we don’t get often anymore: unstructured time. Boredom, in its purest and most underrated form.
We live in an age where waiting feels like a glitch in the matrix. We’re conditioned to fill every gap with noise—scrolling, streaming, swiping. But maybe the gaps are where the good stuff is. The forgotten memories, the new ideas, the quiet noticing of the world around us.
I’m not saying we should all throw away our phones and become monks. But maybe once in a while, we can just… wait. No distractions. No agenda. Just be.
You’d be surprised what shows up.
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