WHILE WAITING FOR THE TEST RESULTS you can play solitaire you can check your email or text someone you can post the update "I am waiting for my test results" you can listen to the music in a more than superficial way to discover if listening deeply makes the music deep you can put on competing music to see what that's like periodically you are praised for your patience but remember that patience like any virtue must be exercised to be strong practice your patience till it is in every breath while waiting for your test results you can fry an egg but be careful not only with your hands but with your attention so that if the voice in your ear goes live you do not ruin the egg through inattention you can read a book or as we say now a text for the thing itself can be presented in many forms but each manifestation is presumed to be the same in essence as any other so we need one word to refer to any manifestation of the thing remember if this is what you choose to do while waiting it is better to think of yourself as reading a text also remember while waiting that any test result is only a picture of a moment in time the metaphor we used to use was "snapshot" you could do better on a later test or worse and you should think of your results as a guide to your choices about future behavior or opportunities or disasters not as a definition of who you are or what chance you have they do not confine you to only one future but they are your results after all they belong to no one else they can't be taken from you once they are given to you after a period of waiting