A waiting period can create room for judgment or merely transfer suffering into the calendar.

A waiting period can serve two very different purposes. It can create room, letting the first reaction settle so a better judgement can form, or it can simply move suffering later without changing anything about it. The mechanism looks identical from the outside, and the difference is whether the time is doing work.

When you impose a wait, on yourself or someone else, ask what is meant to happen during it. If something will be learned, considered, or cooled, the wait is useful. If nothing will change except the date, you are administering delay rather than judgement, and it may be kinder to decide now.