A clock measures the wait without measuring what is at stake in it.

Time can be counted with perfect accuracy while telling you almost nothing about the experience of it. Two hours in a hospital corridor and two hours before a party are identical on the dial and nowhere else. The clock is a measure of duration, not of weight, and confusing the two makes people feel unreasonable for finding a short wait unbearable.

When a wait is hard, stop arguing with yourself about how long it objectively is. Name what is riding on it instead, since that is the actual size of the thing. And when someone else is waiting on news you hold, remember that the minutes you consider brief may be carrying more than you can see from where you stand.