The Waiting Game

We work work work and then- silence. This can't be good for our A-Type Personalities.

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I've physically been out of college for two months now.

Mentally I've been out for almost a year.

All through school, I believed a majority of my stress, anxiety, and depression came from classes and projects. The usually chaos of it all had to be the one and only source, right? While part of this is true, there was a whole other part I did not anticipate to be in the "real" advertising and marketing videography world: The Waiting Game.

The Waiting Game is a fun little game where you, as a producer, take a look at your list of "to-do's". On that list, you notice a bunch of boxes have not yet been checked off. You decide to work on them so that you have no more tasks left and feel accomplished for the day or the week.

Except when you go to check those boxes off, you realize it is out of your hands.

Whether your project is waiting for review from client or in the hands of your editor or colorist, you are stuck sitting at your desk, twiddling your thumbs, and waiting for emails. And for me, that can lasts for up to 8 hours a day.

I knew of this game and knew it would become a daily routine. I have been told and retold countless times by colleagues and friends in the industry that, "it is what it is", and that I would find ways to fill the gaps of waiting with other things.

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So I did just that!

I looked at almost every avenue of things I could be doing to fill the gaps, starting with work. I'd do the usual checking and answering the email thing, hunt for new potential clients, be present in meetings, and general upkeep of my desk. Then, I move onto more... abstract things, such as cleaning our whole office kitchen, sweeping the floors, stocking our pantry, dusting, etc. After all, a happy workspace leads to better productivity, and I personally like to break up my days sitting at a desk by getting up and moving about (anyone who's previously worked in food service or retail and transitioned to office work later in life can feel my bittersweet pain).

Then, we moved into more personal things. Passion project planning, working with other indie short films remotely, and interestingly enough, this blog! I enjoyed working on these things, and while I had permission to do so from my bosses, I have to admit, I still always feel a ping of guilt when I'm not working directly on company projects. At least working on these things still pushed me to continue expanding and developing my creative horizons, which is part of my job, after all.

But then, I really started having a hard time keeping busy. Many of my personal checkboxes were filled at the time and I'd have to- you guessed it- wait for things to be completed on other ends.

At first, I didn't mind having some downtime to just sit and relax for a second, but the Waiting Game can really test your patience.

I stared finding myself getting more agitated at work. My body ached and I felt I could not sit still in my chair very much. I also noticed my eating habits at home becoming more vicious and unhealthy. My social media spending time was through the roof, and I often sought to TikTok for relief to mindlessly scroll. I stayed indoors more often and didn't push myself to spend time with friends. I still worked out, but sometimes would just stop in the middle of it and think, "what's the point?". Loosing interest in things and having a hard time in general is and was not fun.

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It took me about a week to realize that I was falling back into a depressive/anxious episode, similar to the ones that I had back in college when life was crazy and I never stopped moving. But wait-- why is this happening if I work such a low-stress job now? The only beast in my way is boredom...

But that's just it, and I answered my own question. These emotional episodes were resurfacing due to the boredom.

I'm no health expert, and I understand there are other factors in my life that cause my anxiety and depression to heighten at times, but I know full well what I'm like when life is going okay and I'm content on a schedule compared to when I let myself go a bit and spiral down a little. I've been there before, I've sought professional help, and have gotten over the hump in the past. This is just a different hump now.

I recently read a short article from the American Psychological Association that studied the link between boredom and depression back in 2013, and some parts of the short read surprised me.

For starters, I learned that it's not that bored people don't have anything to do, it's more so that they want to be stimulated, but are having trouble interacting with their environment (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2012). So the link with emotions to boredom is really the unfulfilled desire of satisfying activity.

I've also realized that this necessarily may not be depression. Dr. James Danckert, PhD, who was cited in the piece and studies cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo, explained that chronic boredom can look a lot like depression, but depression and boredom are highly correlated, but are distinct states (Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2011)..

While this is only a sliver of the information I read, I found the article to be super helpful in understanding what I've been going through. And on top of that, some of my predictions were wrong: I may not have depression at this time of life; it may instead just be chronic boredom. I must admit, I do have a hard time telling, especially because I haven't seen my therapist in quite some time.

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I think, though, it was okay for me to be wrong about myself and the Waiting Game-- it pushed me to dig deeper into the issue at hand and figure some things out.

I don't have an exact answer to this game though-- I'm still going through it. I more so wanted to use this post as a way to explain what playing the Waiting Game feels like as a young professional freshly out of college, and for anyone out there who goes through the same thing: you're not alone. It sounds typical and silly, but you and I are going to get through this round of the Waiting Game, and we'll be better equip the next time it comes around.

Would you like to read the article I read? You can access it here: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/07-08/dull-moment