I don’t entirely understand the Free Energy principle, and I don’t know how liberally one is meant to apply it.
But in completely practical terms, I used to be very annoyed when doing things with people who take long for stuff/aren’t punctual. And here, I’ve noticed a very direct link between changing expectations and reduced annoyance/suffering. If I simply accept that every step of every activity is allowed[1] to take an arbitrary amount of time,[2] extended waiting times cause almost zero suffering on my end. I have successfully beaten impatience (for some subset of contexts).
The acceptance step works because there is, some sense, no reason waiting should ever be unpleasant. Given access to my phone, it is almot always true to say that the prospect of having to wait for 30 minutes is not scary.
(This is perfectly compatible with being very punctual myself.)
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[1] By saying it is ‘allowed’, I mean something like ‘I actually really understand and accecpt that this is a possible outcome’.
[2] This has to include cases where specific dates have been announced. If someone says they’ll be ready in 15 minutes, it is allowed that they take 40 minutes to be ready. Especailly relevant if that someone is predictably wrong.
I don’t entirely understand the Free Energy principle, and I don’t know how liberally one is meant to apply it.
But in completely practical terms, I used to be very annoyed when doing things with people who take long for stuff/aren’t punctual. And here, I’ve noticed a very direct link between changing expectations and reduced annoyance/suffering. If I simply accept that every step of every activity is allowed[1] to take an arbitrary amount of time,[2] extended waiting times cause almost zero suffering on my end. I have successfully beaten impatience (for some subset of contexts).
The acceptance step works because there is, some sense, no reason waiting should ever be unpleasant. Given access to my phone, it is almot always true to say that the prospect of having to wait for 30 minutes is not scary.
(This is perfectly compatible with being very punctual myself.)
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
[1] By saying it is ‘allowed’, I mean something like ‘I actually really understand and accecpt that this is a possible outcome’.
[2] This has to include cases where specific dates have been announced. If someone says they’ll be ready in 15 minutes, it is allowed that they take 40 minutes to be ready. Especailly relevant if that someone is predictably wrong.