Nearly every day I play tennis, and in NYC, the courts are quite busy. I almost always wait at least one hour to play. Sometimes I even wait up to 3 hours to play.

My friends find this whole tennis waiting thing ridiculous. Sometimes, a friend will pass by (who doesn’t play) and ask me how long I’ve been waiting. When they hear I've been there for 2 hours, they scoff in disbelief.

But I don’t feel that way. Sitting around on those benches by the water is actually the highlight of my days...

When I first started playing tennis, I would bring my laptop and “get emails done”, but now I don’t really even do that anymore. I'm no longer concerned about maximizing my time.

What's even better is when my tennis partners join me in the wait. We just sit there and chat. Sometimes we’ll talk about how funny it is that we just sit out there waiting hours for a tennis court.

Then we wonder what our other friends are doing, or what we would be doing if we weren’t waiting there.

The answer? Watching Netflix. Attending Zoom meetings that we never needed to be at. Browsing social media on our couch.

We realize that sitting there, outside, on those wooden benches by the water is actually better than anything else we could be doing.

And we realize that sitting around and waiting is actually making us happier, healthier, and more productive people.

Because we are in nature, feeling the breeze, and the sun, and the heat and the cold. And seeing the views of the skyscrapers, and the water of the Hudson River.

Because we are surrounded by people, hundreds of people walk and run by these benches. We see friends and familiar faces. We meet new people, make new friends and rekindle old ones.

It’s all just very real. So much more real than sitting at home and doing Zoom meetings.

All of this waiting for tennis has transferred to other areas of my life. It's given me patience and clear-headedness and helped with my anxiety. Most importantly, it's trained me to live more in the present.

I no longer dread waiting, I look forward to it! I plan and build my day around these 4-hour tennis adventures, and I'd like to keep it that way, for a long time.

It’s never about the destination (playing tennis), it’s about the journey (waiting to play).

That's a cliche saying, but it's true, even for the smallest things, like the next line you'll need to wait in.