How to Wait Without Getting Bored
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Waiting can be understood as the absence of something: It’s what stands between you and the coffee, the subway ride, the doctor’s appointment. But what if we tried to construe waiting as a gift of time instead? Okay, fine: Waiting for hours at the DMV or the airport may never feel like a gift. But if you use the interlude to pay attention to your surroundings—or even to crack open a book suitable for brief moments—it may offer more comfort than wallowing in annoyance. Today’s newsletter explores how to make waiting less miserable.
How Not to Be Bored When You Have to WaitBy Arthur C. Brooks
Sick of standing in line? Instead of looking at your phone, read on. (From 2024)
The One Line Americans (Weirdly) Choose to Wait In
By Valerie Trapp
Grocery self-checkout lines are now often longer than the staffed ones.
What to Read When You Have Only Half an Hour
By Celine Nguyen
A short story has velocity and verve, and the best ones create an immediate, instinctual bond between the reader and the characters. (From 2024)
Still Curious?
- Boredom is the price we pay for meaning: “When I became a father, I was forced to reckon with the emotion that consumed my days,” Daniel Smith writes.
- How to cut in line: “Given that Americans are estimated to collectively waste tens of billions of hours a year in lines, it’s no wonder that some people try to cut, and others bitterly resent them,” Jude Stewart wrote in 2017.
Other Diversions
- The sneak-saver generation
- The tension that defines modern life
- A shocking message for a kids’ movie
PS
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Karel R. from Bethesda shared “this opening bud on the star magnolia. I grew up in Southern California and, even after 50 years of living away, find the gray and gloom of eastern winters difficult to endure.” Karel writes that “watching the colors begin to return to my gardens in spring saves my soul and gives me hope for the future. Gardeners plant for now, for themselves, for their neighborhood, and for the future of this planet.”
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel