#013: Waiting For the Other Shoe To Drop? Don't!

In this episode, I talk about the origin of the phrase, "waiting for the other shoe to drop." I discuss how, often, we use this phrase as shorthand for expecting bad things are going to happen. But what if it meant something good was coming instead. Thanks for listening to the show!

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WEBSITE:  https://www.thorchallgren.com
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You can find me here:

Dr. Thor on Instagram @thorchallgren

Website: https://thorchallgren.com

Transcript

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Welcome to Every Day A New Thought show. I'm Thor Challgren. And today, my thought is waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

You may have heard this phrase and wondered what it means where it came from. I'm going to start with a little joke that uses this. And this encapsulates what this phrase means. A guest checks into a hotel one night, and he's told, hey, you've got to be quiet because the guest in the room next to yours is a very light sleeper. So as this guest gets undressed for bed, he drops one shoe, which sure enough, awakens the other guest. But he manages to get the other shoe off in silence. And he gets into bed about an hour later, here's a pounding on the wall, and a shout, "When are you gonna drop the other shoe?"

I love that. And apparently, this joke comes from New York City, the tenements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the apartments were built so close to each other bedrooms, one on top of the other. So it was common for when your upstairs neighbor did something, you would hear it. So if they dropped their shoe, you'd hear it and you're waiting for that repeat action. 

So this becomes a shorthand for waiting something that you know, is coming. I raise this because I think in so many instances in our life, we say I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, meaning we're waiting for something bad to happen, which I can't even believe I'm saying that that we wait for something bad to happen. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? Do we ever wait for something good to happen? We might. 

But going back to that idea of waiting for something bad to happen waiting for the other shoe to drop. It implies that in some way, we don't deserve good things. We expect bad things to happen. We expect, you know noises we expect things that we don't want. 

I'll give you an example. In the cold and flu season, maybe someone in your house gets a cold. What's a natural thought for you? I mean, maybe you just doesn't occur to you. But it occurs to me that you're waiting for the other shoe to drop, meaning, you know, I'm gonna figure I'm gonna get this cold now too, because someone else in the house has it. That's an example of waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

So my question to you, my challenge is to ask, do you have this kind of mindset about certain things? Do you view something and go, Oh, here we go. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because if so, I'm going to suggest that you turn that around. And instead of that phrase meaning something bad or unwanted or undesirable is coming your way. What if waiting for the other shoe to drop meant something good was gonna come to you? 

What if that first shoe is something great that came your way and now you are waiting for something even greater to come again. That can be a way that we can turn that phrase around so that we start to have an expectation that great things are coming our way. 

So the next time you're here waiting for the other shoe to drop. Imagine that it could be something great coming your way.