Writing on my lunch break. Today is a prolonged day. There are about 4 or 5 open tickets right now, but they’re all at a waiting stage, so I can’t really work on them. Waiting to hear back, waiting to get access to the system, waiting to see if a problem will recur… waiting. Just waiting.
Today is my 21st day in a row. I have to keep the streak going. I’m at work and super-not-motivated. So glad that no one actually reads these posts, but, hey, I’m being honest here. I am unmotivated. I feel oppressed by reality: money, health, politics, the capitalist system, gravity, you name it, it feels like all of it is holding us all down these days.
Am I a bummer? Sorry. It is Monday, my friends, and that is not typically a day for my celebration. But. I am working on it. Slowly but with the help of trained professionals. I am on it. I have set a goal, and I am working towards it. Or maybe the journey is the goal, in some kind of wild transferrence maneuver.
I am not a patient person most times. I’m very impatient when I don’t know how long something will take, and only mildly impatient when I know where the finish line is. Knowing the deadline doesn’t really tamp down my annoyance at waiting. I know I could be a bigger, better, more patient person, but I’m familiar enough with the inside of my own head to know that that is simply not meant to be.
What’s funny (to me) is that I have been seen as incredibly patient. For example, by tech-non-savvy people who have just been walked through a series of steps to diagnose or repair a computer problem. “Wow, you’re so patient!” they say, while I’m on the other end of the phone banging my fist against the table and making the angriest faces despite a deliberate-paced and even-toned voice. I don’t feel very patient in those moments but I’m seeing those moments from the inside of my own head; apparently the screams of frustration don’t pass through my skull, more’s the pity.
Can someone be both patient and impatient? At the same time? Or is the ability to suppress the symptoms of impatience to the level where they are unnoticeable actually patience? Maybe my definition of impatience includes other people’s definition of patience. That would be funny. I mean, it’s all funny to me. Except for the aggravation. That’s never funny in the moment; sometimes it’s funny after the fact, though.
But I’m being too hard on myself. There are plenty of times I have been patient. I can wait through unpleasant or boring times. I can distract myself to where I hardly notice the passing of time. Is it patience if I go to bed and sleep rather than pine away for relief from boredom? I’ve done that. Have you?
What do you think patience and impatience look like? Are the signs different depending on if you’re the giver vs. being the receiver? I’m listening.