Wait? Dammit, I'm Going to Kill Something

Patient:  Calmly tolerating delay, confusion, inefficiency, etc.; able to wait calmly.


I CANNOT BELIEVE that I have never looked up the definition of this word.  But I guess that's because I have only a passing notion of the concept of patience.  If I were smarter than I am now, which wouldn't be much of an improvement, that's for sure, I'd have the word tattooed on my forehead, backwards, so that every time I look in the mirror, which is distressingly often for a special guy like me, I'd see "Patience" in living color.  Assuming I used color inks for the tattoo, which I probably wouldn't seeing as I'm pretty cheap and my understanding is that color really drives up the cost of the tattoo.  That and the fact that I pass out when I give blood, what with all of the sharp needles and piercing of the skin and everything so I'm assuming a needle stuck in my forehead would cause some pretty significant problems pretty quickly.  Maybe I could use white-out.


Anyway, I have been thinking about my new home and everything that's wrong with it.  I suppose I should probably be thinking about all of its great benefits but that sounds too weird to even consider,  counterproductive, even, for someone like me who enjoys pain and anxiety so much; concentrating on the negative aspects, no matter how few and insignificant they might be, comes so naturally to me and gives me such great pleasure, apparently, because I do it so often and so well and with such undivided focus and attention.  The point is that there are a few things I'd like to change about it -- that need to be changed -- and I want them changed RIGHT NOW!  The reality is that these things aren't that important, really, and I'm making them much more important than they are.  When I do that I become impatient and I try to force things through before the time is right.


I've always liked the expression "Do the legwork and leave the results up to your higher power."  The advice is that I need to do the work -- that's my responsibility -- and then wait patiently for the results -- that's god's responsibility in our partnership.  I'm the guy who takes the square peg, looks at the round hole, picks up the sledgehammer, and starts making that #@!! round peg fit in that #@!! square hole.  When I start forcing things, pushing too hard, then I get a lot of problems. But when I relax and take a deep breath and let everything move of its own accord then the outcomes are always so much better.


I have looked up "impatience" by the way.