If only it were easy to will ourselves to have patience.
We would do it but likely would want it immediately.
I maintain patience takes practice, which is why it has been good for me recently to follow at slower than highway speeds farm implements going between fields all the while competing with commuter traffic.
I live on a gravel road and when tractors and trucks buzz by my driveway, billowing dust behind them, it always seems like they are racing over those sloping hills that take me home each day. “Slow down, for Pete’s sake,” I think, fuming just a little that certainly they don’t realize that they could kill someone they meet on the next hill while traveling at those speeds.
But put anyone behind a slow-moving tractor with wide rows of discs that fold up and stick straight into the air, and it’s a test of wills and a poster child for patience. Time stands still and traps you inside your car.
On a recent morning before 8 a.m., a line of roughly eight cars backed up behind a farmer going 25 miles an hour on an area highway. A couple of drivers did the dare devil move of passing the entire line before barely sneaking in ahead of oncoming traffic. Others patiently chugged along behind the farmer. A few, including me, eventually passed without acting as if we were practicing for NASCAR.
“It’s good for me to slow down,” I thought, looking out the window at the rich, black dirt of recently planted fields. It’s a good time to look around, to notice changes and to think.
And really, what are we worried we will be late for? I hate not being on time if I’m meeting someone because I think it is disrespectful. But no one has ever gotten mad about it on those occasions when I can’t help getting somewhere on time.
Circumstances stick a slow-moving tractor into our lives, metaphorically, on all kinds of occasions. It seems like we struggle to get out of the fast lane and take it in stride.
As an example, our internet doesn’t work as quickly as we would like and won’t immediate load stuff NOW so we curse it or click on the link repeatedly as if it will help. Hey, relax, it only has to go like to the moon and back to bring up that information, something that we might want to read but isn’t always a necessity. Be a little more patient, I remind myself.
Or, we text someone and they don’t answer right away. What could they possibly be doing that is more important than texting back? Well…keep in mind that no generation before now has even had that kind of access, people to people.
It’s likely true that the immediacy of our modern world contributes to our patience deficit. Who can wait for anything anymore?
The fast lane certainly can have some advantages. But I maintain that the slow lane can, too.
It can take some patience but with practice, it’s a pretty enjoyable place to be. Let everyone else race to the front of the line to save 30 seconds. Arrive when you get there.
I can be as impatient as the worst of them. I become frustrated easily when things don’t go smoothly and as efficiently as I expect. But when I stop and try and exercise some patience, I can see that usually things aren’t going well because I’m trying to cram too many things into one moment or even an afternoon. Either that or I’m tired from never taking time to slow down a little.
It’s a work in progress, this desire of mine to hop into the slow lane. Switching to patience is also spelled the same way when you think about it, with a corny variation in punctuation.
So, my goal is to turn “impatient” into “I’m patient.”
