Patience

Patience

In this fast-paced world you will find not many people practice this simple word. Personally, I find it kinda sad to see people have to hurry through a line as if they are entitled to special treatment that no one else is entitled to. As a child most of us are taught to take turns. Wait our turn. As we blossom into the world as adults you would think we have learned this lesson by then. In fact, if you ever people watch you may notice a large number of people acting as if they never learned this.

At one point or another we get to where we are going regardless how fast we go. In society, technology has hardwired our brains to want things faster, instantly. Instant gratification. Web pages are a good example. If we go from high speed internet where a web page loads in less then a second, then attempt to go to an area where the internet connection is less then favorable you can expect load times on web pages several seconds long or more. Most of us have dealt with this and even gotten annoyed with it. I have. Guilty as charged.

Sometimes we are in a hurry in general. We leave work during rush hour and expect everyone to have the same goal. To get home. Go the speed limit. Then we encounter people who may not have been patient and caused an accident in their rush to get home. Or perhaps just a traffic jam from a large amount of people heading toward their destination. People here become impatient. Why?

We are tired. When people become tired they grow impatient and forget that everyone else is doing the same thing they are. That we must keep our cool or create a hostile environment for those around us. Road rage ensues and people try to speed. All in all, not a favorable feeling. In reality, we all are stacked up in lines taking turns getting to our destinations.

What about long term goals? How patient are we? Some get so impatient they give up. Others practice this better then standing in a five minute line. They have the concept of patience and hard work, but forget the same practice in daily life as if they are not one in the same. 

I have always been more patient then some others. I have been told I have patience of a saint even! Working at theme parks while still maintaining a steady guest line speed builds you up to the expectation that everyone gets a chance once they get in that line. Of course, situations change, rules moved around, and then your patience goes out the door as you stress a limited amount of time to see who you can for the goal character and you then notice the other side of patience that is quite frustrating. Those who don't consider others behind them at all, taking more time on purpose because they are entitled to take as much time as they see fit and not caring if the children or families get their turn. 

All in all what breaks patience most of the time is selfishness. 

Now, about me here. My long term goals are about to come true. Me and my fiancee have been working hard on getting a place to rent of our own for quite some time. We started out with friends and moved many times. We had our baby and lost the biggest house we were renting due to my loss of job at the time. During these few months after the baby was the worse practice of patience I ever had. I became bitter. We were homeless and had to ask for help and still had nothing and no space for ourselves. I hated knowing people we knew having things. Not a hate for them, but a hate we couldn't do anything no matter how hard we had tried. Fast forward a bit closer to now. My patience fluctuates. Some days are harder then others with the roommates we have, the place we live in. But we have been working hard and setting goals. We lapse sometimes, but hard work and keeping some sort of focus is producing results. We have a place of our own set up and being remodeled JUST FOR US. A single-wide trailer but a fantastic yard and enough room for the three of us. Plus a large kitchen for me! We looked into the other trailers around us, even really wanting the double wide next to us because I love room- I love extra space. The landlord who runs the park had been slowly fixing this abandon trailer for a long, long time- but never making the effort to rent it out anytime soon to keep up with the other tenants in the park. After getting word we were really ready to get into one she set off to remodel this place and FOR US- keeping in mind we had the baby and we were good people (not saying everyone here is bad, but lot's of unfavorable types). She knew what we wanted and needed, thinking of us specifically to get the most private, largest yard, and only porched home here. This place never had carpet- she's putting that in. She let me pick out colors for the walls instead of prepainting. She is letting me do whatever I want with the yard, letting me paint murals in the bathrooms and really loving my ideas for decor and space management in this place. No one at the park renting gets much of these "OK's" but she's letting me make it comfortable and homey! 

Still a couple weeks left and I'm excited. Lot's of work ahead of me, but actually getting this place has been a long time coming for us. 

How does my story fit into "patience"?  All the money problems we had the past few months have set us back. We always looked into places for us. What could have changed if we had hurried? Perhaps the problems would have still occurred while just getting into a place and we could have lost everything again. Maybe we would be in a different trailer here with no allowance on what we could do, no yard for the baby and my wanting to garden. I would have made do, but maybe I wouldn't have been so happy after all for long term. This opportunity finally came. It came out of patience, waiting, planning. It's still hard- I want this place NOW but I know they are working hard on making it perfect for us. Every day, hour, minute- even second- is closer to getting what we NEED. Not just jumping ahead to what we would have wanted.

Whatever you do today, this week and months for now remember: Be patient. Learn and be aware of others and how they are waiting just like you. Share, take turns and be happy about it. You'll get there.