I Was Told to Wait
general-commentary · September 1, 2026
I was watching the latest episode of Lanterns, and something hit me.
What Lanterns Made Me Think About Strength, Fear, and the People Institutions Depend On
I was watching the latest episode of Lanterns, and something hit me.
This was not just a superhero story.
At least it was not to me.
There was something about John Stewart's story that felt familiar. Not because I have ever been handed a Green Lantern ring, obviously. My retirement package did not include one of those.
It was the way he had been conditioned.
The discipline.
The patience.
The ability to follow instructions.
The ability to sit there and wait because somebody told him to wait.
That part got me.
Because I know that person.
I have worked around that person.
I have supervised that person.
I have trained that person.
If I am being truthful, I have been that person.
For a long time, I believed being able to take more meant you were stronger.
More responsibility.
More pressure.
More stress.
More dysfunction.
More expectations.
You handled it because that is what professionals do.
You showed up.
You did your job.
You figured it out.
People eventually learned something about you.
Anthony can handle it.
That sounds like a compliment.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it is also how an organization learns that it can keep giving you more without ever asking what the weight is doing to you.
That is the part of Lanterns that stayed with me.
What Does "Afraid" Actually Mean?
John's father is asked whether he is afraid.
He says yes.
That answer costs him.
That bothered me because the people evaluating him knew the answer, but they did not necessarily understand the answer.
There is a difference.
A person admitting fear does not automatically mean that person lacks courage.
Sometimes the person who tells you he is afraid understands danger better than the person pretending he is not.
That distinction matters.
I spent enough years around criminal justice, community supervision, leadership, training, and government systems to know how easily institutions can confuse two things that look similar on paper.
Fear and weakness.
Compliance and competence.
Performance and wellness.
Silence and agreement.
Endurance and strength.
Those are not always the same things.
Yet we build systems that treat them like they are.
Then we are surprised when the system gets the person wrong.
We Reward People for Learning How to Take It
This may have been the biggest connection for me.
John is conditioned to become what the institution is looking for.
Think about that for a minute.
Once you understand what the system rewards, you learn how to operate inside the system.
Do not complain too much.
Control your emotions.
Follow instructions.
Handle pressure.
Keep moving.
Do not let people see you rattled.
Get the job done.
Eventually, you can become extremely good at functioning inside environments that are not necessarily good for you.
People see the performance.
They do not always see what it takes to maintain it.
That is where I think we get strength wrong.
We look at the person who keeps showing up and assume everything must be fine.
We look at the employee carrying the workload and assume they can carry more.
We look at the supervisor holding everything together and assume they do not need anyone holding anything together for them.
We look at the person who never asks for help and call them resilient.
Maybe.
Or maybe they learned a long time ago that asking for help was not going to change anything.
Those are two very different stories.
"I Was Told to Wait"
That line might have been the simplest part of the episode.
It may also have been the most important.
He waited because he was told to wait.
There is something admirable about that level of discipline.
There is also something worth questioning.
At what point does discipline become conditioning?
At what point does loyalty stop being something you give and become something an institution expects?
At what point does being dependable become permission for everybody else to depend on you without considering the cost?
I do not think enough organizations ask those questions.
They celebrate the person who stayed.
They celebrate the person who pushed through.
They celebrate the person who took the difficult assignment.
They celebrate the person who worked short.
They celebrate the person who kept the operation moving.
They celebrate the person who figured it out.
Then one day that person leaves.
Everybody talks about how strong they were.
Very few people ask why they had to be that strong in the first place.
Functioning Is Not the Same as Being Okay
This distinction has become increasingly important to me.
A person can function exceptionally well and still be carrying something.
You can lead while carrying something.
You can supervise while carrying something.
You can train other people while carrying something.
You can make decisions while carrying something.
You can laugh, produce, solve problems, meet deadlines, and show up every morning while carrying something.
That is what makes it difficult for institutions to recognize.
We have been taught to look for collapse.
Sometimes there is no collapse.
Sometimes there is just adaptation.
The person learns how to carry the weight so well that eventually everybody forgets the weight is there.
Including the person carrying it.
Then You Leave
This is where Lanterns connected with me differently.
John's life does not continue exactly according to the identity that had been built for him.
Another part of him gets room.
Art.
Something outside the structure.
Something that might have looked unrelated to everything he had been prepared to become.
That matters to me right now.
After decades of working, leading, supervising, training, coaching, serving, solving problems, and being responsible for something or somebody, retirement creates an interesting question.
Who are you when nobody is telling you what you need to be today?
I am starting to think that might be the wrong question.
Maybe the better question is:
What parts of me never got enough room because I was too busy being what the situation required?
Writer.
Creator.
Teacher.
Builder.
Coach.
Entrepreneur.
Someone who can take years of experience and finally say what he thinks without wondering whether it fits inside somebody else's organizational chart.
Those things did not suddenly appear because I retired.
They were already there.
They just have more room now.
Maybe Strength Needs a Better Definition
I still believe in discipline.
I still believe in responsibility.
I still believe people have to be able to operate when things get difficult.
I am not interested in turning every uncomfortable experience into trauma or pretending that every difficult workplace is automatically harmful.
That would be another failure to make a distinction.
Some things are hard.
Some things hurt.
Some things teach you.
Some things change you.
Wisdom is learning how to tell the difference.
Maybe strength is not how much you can take.
Maybe strength is knowing when taking more no longer serves a purpose.
Maybe courage is not being fearless.
Maybe courage is being able to acknowledge fear without allowing fear to make the decision.
Maybe loyalty does not require silence.
Maybe professionalism does not require pretending.
Maybe functioning does not always mean you are fine.
And maybe leaving an institution does not mean losing your identity.
Sometimes it gives you enough distance to finally see which parts of your identity were actually yours.
That is what I took from Lanterns.
Funny thing about television.
Sometimes you sit down expecting superheroes.
And somebody hands you a mirror.
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