Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.
Coelho captures something psychologists now call "ambiguity intolerance"—the particular agony of paralysis that exceeds either of its outcomes. A person waiting for a lover's call suffers, yes, but at least knows what they're doing; someone who's moved on suffers the loss, but has direction. The real torment belongs to the one standing in the doorway, unable to decide whether to keep the phone charged or delete their number. He's identified that suffering isn't always proportional to circumstance—it's often proportional to our *indecision* about the circumstance, which means the antidote isn't always patience or acceptance, but simply *choosing*, even imperfectly.
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason...”
Marcus Aurelius“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. I...”
Viktor Frankl“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca