PATIENCE MONTH: DAY 15: “Patience isn’t simply waiting, it is caring enough about the situation and those involved to remain calm and courteous throughout the wait.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich
I have been horrified by the rude behavior of someone who is waiting in line somewhere and is horribly impatient. What I find interesting about it is that they will then turn to someone else in the line and attempt to get them to agree with them.
What I know about this is, I have done it myself. I felt terrible after I acted like an asshole and then tried to make it okay by gathering a posse.
I have been wrong in so many situations in my life. I have behaved badly and rudely to others…whether while driving my car and getting impatient, or in a grocery store, or in a mall or in line for an event, so many opportunities to be a jackass! And I have taken too many of them.
And in almost every opportunity, I have looked around at those who witnessed it and tried to engage them on my team. Ugh! That feeling sucks!
What I love about this process is the ability to be lenient with myself when I am not behaving well, and the ability to clean it up…not by apologizing, which I work to not do; but by telling the other person how wrong I was in my actions and my silly attitude.
I don’t blow it off by being flippant, because that can make it all somehow worse. But I don’t get overly dramatic either.
I just know that the world around me is practicing supreme and deadly arrogance most of the time. We are all ‘multi-tasking’, racing around and trying to do 10 things at once, running here and there, talking without listening, frantic and stressed. All of this is a construct of our thinking that what we are doing is vastly more important than what others are doing and that they are in our damn way!
In the most crowded conditions we have ever been in, we are not patient enough to allow others to have a turn, have a say, and inhabit their space.
What if we all back away from one another and ALLOW for space? What if we all have the decency and the manners to share? Share time, share space, share air?
We invade the world with technology that cuts us off from other people. It is unheard of in the time when I was growing up to walk down a street and NOT look others in the eye. Today, it is seldom that anyone does that! An old John Prine song (also beautifully sung by Joan Baez) talked about “SEEING” old people. What if we SAW others? It would give us the connection, the true, deep connection we are all dying to receive.
The human brain secretes a wonderful hormone called Oxytocin when we have a meaningful exchange with an animal or another human. This is often a hug, or a physical engagement with a dog or cat. We all know the feeling…it is a few minutes of deep love…CONNECTION!
We also get this when we engage in even 2-3 minutes of eye contact and personal conversation with another person. We feel it all the time when we look into the eyes of another addict and tell them a significant thing about ourselves or they share something important with us. This is CONNECTION…on this basis, we can form a RELATIONSHIP. It is very, very, very important. And we all want it.
So, let’s all go out today and STOP the bullshit busy-ness and connect deeply and authentically with another human or animal. See how it feels. Do it a lot. Your joy will be boundless! And free! And it will be a big step toward the healing of our very, very, very broken culture.
Dolphin Hug 