I’ve grown up hearing that phrase from my dad. Patience is a virtue. Most of the time I would respond, “One which I do not possess.”
What is it with people and their patience these days? I can recount numerous times sitting at a stop light and hearing the horns of cars blowing because someone didn’t proceed into the intersection the moment the first hint of green showed on the signal. Yesterday I was scheduled to work on the afternoon shift, 2 pm until 10 pm. But I was also scheduled to be at court at 9 am. So I packed the kids up (which that alone tried my patience) and took them to day care so they could get to school and I would have plenty of time to get to the police station and then get to court. I made it about half way there and ran into traffic. I heard on the radio that there was an accident ahead which was blocking the two left lanes. Not a big deal, I thought. I’ve worked many accidents on the highway and they should have this cleared up in no time. I was wrong. Forty minutes and three miles later I finally got out of traffic.
But it’s what happened in those forty minutes that fit the title of this blog. With every inch I moved forward, 30 seconds ticked off the clock. I had to be somewhere. I was going to be late. I began to yell at no one just out of frustration. Not that anyone could hear me, but it made me feel better. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a guy cussing at the top of his lungs. I thought, “What’s this guy’s problem?” and then realized that was probably how I looked to the guy in front of me just seconds earlier.
I decided to calm down and made it to work. Then I had to go to court. I must have hit every single red light between the police station and the courts building. I got frustrated again, but I decided since I was in a police car now it was probably not a good idea to yell at the cars in front of me. But I was yelling inside. These people were making me even later. When I finally got to court I was twenty minutes late. I explained to the prosecuting and defense attorneys what had happened. They were very understanding. Just one problem. The defense attorney had subpoenaed me for the wrong day. I was not needed to testify for another month and a half.
I kind of giggled inside because I had made such a big deal about getting there on time when it really didn’t even matter. Why is it that we are so high-strung these days? I realize that I had an appointment I had to make. But I had no patience or faith that things would work out. I am going to try to work on my patience. Patience at work and definitely at home. This story leads me into my next blog subject: examples.
