Patience isn’t only a virtue, it is a differentiator

Patience in practice.

I am not a patient person.

I want what I want when I want it. Not unlike a two-year old.

The scary thing is that I am not in the minority. Yep, I’m in the majority. And, quelle surprise,  so are you.

Me?

Yes, Pumpkin– YOU. ‘Fess up, I bet you probably don’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many times in a day you exasperatedly say “Jesus Christ, could they/you/it take any longer? I’m in a hurry.”

That’s a good point. As wrote the sentence above there’s a “Me-centric-ness” that just leaps out. And that’s what’s wrong. In this day of almost effortless immediate gratification, we’re training ourselves to be less patient, more self-centric and thus less grateful for the effort, the ingenuity, the technology that transpires for our benefit.

Slow it down.  Follow my logic train. Let’s think about apple pie.

What?

Apple pie. Only a little over a century ago, getting an apple pie involved much more than hoofing it over to Shaw’s, Ralph’s, Winn-Dixie or any other  le supermarché.  To get a hot apple pie on the table you needed the following: some grain, a mill, flour, a cow, milk, churning butter, a chicken, eggs, making baking soda, an apple tree, some apples, a wood stove, trees, axe, cutting the wood, sugar, a pig, a knife, rendering the fat (insert a dozen other steps,) procuring spices (insert dozen other steps,) mixing, rolling, cutting, seasoning, mixing, laying the crust, scooping the apples in pie tin (oh, yeah don’t forget procuring or forging said pie tin,) baking, cooling and then eating.

In essence, a hell of a lot of planning, time and patience. No wonder obesity was nil back then.

There probably weren’t a whole lot of F.A. Jeans hanging on people’s pegs.

Nowadays, your average two year old know Dunkin’ Doughnuts = doughnuts. NOW.

My two year old also knows Amazon “One-click” button = books, probably tomorrow; Comcast OnDemand= Scooby-Dooby-Doooo!; ATM = $$. We’re raised on more and more immediate gratification. By contrast, and to be fair, we were all raised this way too. 7-Eleven= slurpees & big gulps, TV= entertainment, Ice cream/ Pizza parlours & McDonalds= YUMMY Food Fast.

Drink me.

So what does all of this immediate  consumption and immediate expectation mean? That we, as a species, are developing into pretty freakin’ impatient beings. We want what we want, when we want it. Usually right NOW.

Calvin demonstrating my point.

So not only is patience a virtue, it’s a premium– so much so it’s a differentiator.

Be the patient one. That’s the goal. While everyone else is running around like a chicken with their heads cut off (blame my Mom, Jeannine, for that charming little turn of phrase but it fits) be the one that realizes it is just temporary. It’s ALL temporary in some form.

I’ve been recently reading (more like listening to CD’s) of Dr. Wayne Dyer. He does a pretty good job for making the case for the temporality of it all. And I mean it all. But I am not selling my brand of crazy here– I’m just making the case for patience. Patience not for it’s own sake; but  accepting that everything has a flow, unfolding on its own terms, at its own tempo. You might as well enjoy the journey and not be inpatient about it.

Hear me out.  Sometimes things happen effortlessly. Sometimes, no matter how freakin’ hard you try, The Titanic is just going to go down– throwing deck chairs off the deck isn’t going to stop the inevitable. Not to say don’t try, don’t have goals, the exact opposite.  Set the goal, work the system and relax in the unfolding. That is the patience I am discussing here.

I’ve always loved how the Chinese looked at patience. In the past, when the Chinese implemented a major initative, they expect it to take years, decades, even generations for it to come to fruition. That’s some patience folks. Now compare that to modern business strategy implementation, usually they expect results in weeks, months or until the CEO gets fired.  Of course, given how technologically interconnected we all are now, I bet even the Chinese are starting to get impatient.

Business today is chock full of the impatient. People investing for a quick buck. A lot of the economic mess we’re up to our eyeballs in can be pretty much chalked up to impatience. I want what I want when I want it. Now. Bigger house, better car, newer TV, nicer vacation. Bigger, better, newer, nicer. Now.

Again I am not saying not to dream of nice things. Ambition and goals are a good things. The stress of NOW (wither overextending yourself financially or the stress of work or overwork for example) really negates the pleasure of obtaining your heart’s desire or goal. What if you just relaxed and let it unfold? What would happen? I think you’d be surprised at what transpires. I usually am.

Be the different. Stop being inpatient.

As they say, a journey of a thousand steps starts with one step. My two cents is this: I say stop looking for the shorter route and enjoy the walk. See the sights. Learn a few things. Breathe. You’ll get there in due time.

Of course, I have to remind myself of this… a lot.

One Response to “Patience isn’t only a virtue, it is a differentiator”

1. The Busy Persons Guide to Having it ALL…. - The Liquid Betsy says:

   July 20, 2009 at 10:25 AM

   [...] I am the first to admit I want it all, now. Patience is not an inherent virtue of mine. Though I am trying to learn. But with patience I can have the time to give all of me, all the facets of me, my due. I have to [...]