Why does no one like to wait? Why does everyone prefer instant and soluble coffee these days? From coffee to cocoa, from social networks to music, from human relationships to works of art. Everything has to be here, now, right now… This obsession with instant coffee makes us lose sight of the value of time for life, for a human life. As we no longer want to wait to take the coffee beans in our hands, to put them in the grinder, to listen to the sound of the ratchet that grinds them with each turn, as we no longer have the patience to open the box and put the grind to boil, while that unique aroma of freshly made coffee explodes before us, well, as we can no longer bear the wait, we prefer to lose sight of the authentic and subrogate ourselves to quasi-spatial capsules that contain a subject cousin that we can neither see nor smell.

I have nothing against that which, by its very nature, is instantaneous. The ephemeral has an indisputable value, as does the permanent. Nor do I consider that the solid is necessarily superior to the liquid. However, one thing is clear to me: most interesting things occur in times that require a deep extension, which extend as long as some movements of Mahler's symphonies. In our days, so given to hyperbole, we come across peculiar phenomena that the social sciences try to name in order to have more or less control over them. Those who are dedicated to analyzing and understanding human behavior try to qualify or describe these "new" issues in order to try to explain their nature and control them.

Some of the terms that began to be heard some time ago hid something more than a political poetics. In his Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman he began his reflection by recalling some words from Paul Valery in which he reminded us that interruption and surprise are the usual conditions of our life. However, our contemporary way of life sometimes prefers to bet on things never ending: it seems that going out at night to a party is no longer enough for us to have fun, what we want is for it to go on indefinitely, and when everything closes we look for an 'after', as if to prolong a status that neither our body nor our mind can bear. Surprises are also suffering a worrying devaluation: we want to know everything, now, right away, before it happens… What surprises us attacks us at the waterline, because what we really want is to have everything under control.

Our societies show certain doses of anthropological exhaustion. Paradoxically, perhaps we are exhausted from living badly, when what we innocently intended was to reach the highest possible limit of well-being. Byung-Chul Han has seen this clearly. The society of fatigue is the testimony of a malaise produced by our inability to live in harmony. agreement with who we are: negativity, violence, disciplinary control, boredom… have generated a spiral of denaturalization, turning human beings into automatons located behind screens. The universe of hyper in which we are immersed, hyperconnectivity, hypertextuality, hypercriticism, hyperdulia, hyperconvenience, have ended our natural way of being in the world and have caused us hyperventilation, hyperactivity and hypertension. And from that, one dies. At least one dies as a person, even if one's body barely resists it.

What is the root of having lost patience, of having lost the sense of waiting? The answer is quite simple: we have lost peace, we have lost hope. Well, if that is the case, we are facing the best time of the year to recover both. The necessary, though not sufficient, condition is to become like children again, which is the same as returning to a way of life in which one puts oneself in the hands of those who love one the most.

There will be those who do not know how to find peace in the maelstrom that surrounds them, but core topic is not to trust in yourself, but in whoever is trustworthy. There will be those who want everything now, here, now and will be constantly frustrated because none of that happens, but the core topic It is about taking care of what one wants, and not wishing for it haphazardly, as if everything that is desirable were convenient.

The secret of peace and hope is knowing how to say no to no and yes to yes. One day we will realize that joy and peace are not found in the gut, but in the heart. At some point we will discover that waiting is not a punishment, but a gift, a very appropriate present for a time like ours, which needs to remember that the meaning of our life is in truth, in its beauty.