Patience

[Dick Whitman]

Between having young children, a high-strung dog, deadlines, and the various tripwires and obligations of everyday life, I feel like I have less and less patience. I was just standing in line in Starbucks behind about five or six people, and I could honestly feel my blood pressure just rising as I thought of all the things I had to do today.

Of course, it often turns out that things I'm putting off because I don't feel like I have the time or patience to do them take about five minutes. Sometimes I'll put those things off for weeks because I'm afraid to battle technology, navigate uncooperative bureaucrats, etc., etc.

I'm sure technology - email, texts, high-speed internet, etc. - has a lot to do with my loss of patience. It's also hereditary probably. My dad was like a constant stress ball.

Anyone else have patience issues?

And how have you dealt with them?

I feel like this is something that is more important than ever as our world (and our business) becomes more and more fast-paced and we feel like we are constantly under a deadline.

 

[Big Circus]

Try sitting around in a circle and whistling.

 

[kingcreole]

Actually, having three kids has helped me with patience. Just yesterday, princecreole threw a puzzling fit while taking him to preschool. Kid loves preschool, but after not going for two days (out of town doctor's appointment, then school closed) he felt he didn't need to go yesterday for whatever reason. The prince screamed and cried for 20 minutes outside his room while his teacher and I tried to calm him down. I never stressed out, knowing damn well the prince wasn't going anywhere with me until 11:30 a.m.

The one thing where I lose patience (other than the eldest princess' father not paying child support) is people not returning phone calls. First day, I can understand. Second day, OK whatever. When I have to call a third day and leave another message and still not hear back? **** man, you have my cell number. Shoot me a text telling me to **** myself if you want. That way I won't have to keep wasting my time calling you and waiting.

 

[farmerjerome]

Well, I ran out of patience about this time last week.

My dad died 10 weeks ago. One of my closest friends had something awful happen to her at work and the company dragged their feet on on. Meanwhile, our asshole boss was supposed to promote me a month ago. He literally has not done it yet out of spite because he doesn't like me, despite direct orders from our district manager.

Last friday, I got a call during the football game that I was covering that one of my best friends' mothers had a stroke. Her calcium was low and she passed out, shattering her shoulder on the way down. Since she lives alone, she siezed for five hours until someone found her, and bit off part of her tounge. I was the only one who went to the hospital with my friend. I knew it was going to be a late night, so I tried to get someone to take my hours for the next day (it was a short day shift). And if you think any one of the selfish assholes I work with would take my hours you'd be wrong.

The day I left for vacation, my grandmother (who is 91) was rushed in for emergency surgery. It turns out her bowel was perferated in three places, and if she didn't have the surgery she was a gonner. There was a real chance that she wasn't going to make it through the surgery anyway.

So basically, I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown for a few days. I know I'm not dealing with this well. As they were wheeling my grandmother into surgery, I was embarrassed that I was crying. I didn't want anyone to see or touch me. That's not a good thing. Thank god I'm on vacation. I really need some time to process.