“Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Attend un peu! (French) Subiri! (Kiswahili) Stick a pin! (Jamaican patois) All meaning …….. You got it, WAIT! Un momento por favor! (Spanish). You name a language, and there is a phrase for; hold your horses! Come slow! Chill and ultimately…. Be patient!
This patience thing, man I have real issues with it. Yes I know good things come to those who wait; Haraka Haraka haina Baraka (hurry hurry has no blessing! – in Kiswahili). I really do know, but I still have issues with it. Whenever we are waiting, we are anticipating, and it is that anticipation that puts so much pressure on us that we sometimes even forget to breathe. Knots in your stomach, you perspire like you’ve just finished the 100 metre dash and all for ……. waiting for, being patient for, pretending that it is not in the forefront of your mind, keeping yourself busy when all you can do is think of what is to be good or bad, it has not yet become, but it will just WAIT! Wait, wait wait, what are we waiting for Godot? Okay sorry I’m digressing a little, but enough with all this waiting already!
On the same lines, I like track and field, particularly I find watching the short sprints so exciting, but I kid you not, the starting of those races are enough to make one have a conniption. Technically with short sprints there is not much time and the first of the block has a better chance of winning so…….. On your marks, Get se-e-ettt……….GO! And they are off, no sorry false start, come back, put that adrenaline back into the box and calm yourself. On your marks…..! Oh and by the way, too many false starts attributed to one person and they are disqualified, how is that for added pressure?
Okay so this patience thing… it will all happen in its own good time, yes it will and I know it, deep in my soul I know it, but it does not make it any easier, never has!… I remember back in the day, the first time you talk with your crush and you exchange numbers, and he promises to call! How exciting! That phone call from him was the only thing on your mind from that point on, but life with its cruelty and sense of wicked humour has it that as you were waiting for THAT call at the pre-appointed time, everybody and their mothers decided to they should also call. Your phone ended up so busy, you could easily have been the local telephone exchange. “Get off the phone everyone” you wanted to scream, “Don’t you know I am waiting for THAT call!” Oh and for the record, it was pre-mobile phones so you are not going to go too far from the phone at home, ours was in the dining room, a room where the only thing you could do there was eat, yet on that day, the dining room takes on new life, I would move in there until the phone call, at least two hours before, in case I heard the time wrong or all the clocks and watches in the house are not working, can’t take any chances on missing THAT phone call. Can he call already, this waiting is killing me!
So patience, patience, patience, as I write this I sigh, I don’t like to wait and I really do feel like am going to die, but since I don’t know what it feels like to die, then I know that I am just being a bit melodramatic, but my feelings on patience stand, I don’t like it, it is a virtue I have little of but I do try, really I try to be more patient, but……. There it is, at least I am honest about it! What also really irritates me about waiting is that when that thing, whatever it is finally comes to be, I look back and think of all the time I wasted, getting all hot and bothered about waiting and yet, it was always beyond my control and it really could only have happened in its own time! So why did I waste so much time dwelling on it!
One thing for sure is I don’t give up, so I am going to continue trying to acquire this virtue patience, I will try to remember and accept that I have no control over time and when some things happen, and that’s okay. I must utilise my wait time better and without the usual angst, so that no matter the outcome the patience pays off because of all the things I accomplished while I was waiting. There is hope for me yet if I just learn to be gracefully patient.