Thursday, February 11, 2010

Slow Your Roll, Child

Second post. I'm still around, folks.

My thought for today is how much being patient will reveal you. When I was younger, I was always frustrated by how slow old people were. Slow talking, describing things with extra painstaking detail. Slow counting their money when I was a cashier at Kmart. Slow driving. Just ssslllllooooowww.

Now that I'm a little older (stress little), I thought I understood why they were so slow. I thought it was mainly physical, you know, things don't work as well as they used to. I also believed that it was because they were in no rush to get anywhere else, nowhere important to be (ever seen the "Retired" bumper stick? "No clock, No job, No money, I'M RETIRED!").

Now, I'm realizing more each day the real reason. They, these gray haired geniuses, are still learning, observing the events around them, gathering new knowledge each day, and applying the knowledge they've already learned.

I learned yesterday if you are patient, and let things (and people) around you run their course without your input, the outcome can be pleasantly suprising. I assumed that someone I was dealing with was ill-prepared to handle a situation we were facing. But circumstances were such that I really didn't have the freedom to intervene, if I did it would have ruined everything.

So I sat. Waited. Stood. Waited. Watched. Waited.

And then, I saw it. It's like the pieces came together for this person, and they began to understand the situation as I saw it, and then even better. I was tickled pink on the inside (aren't we all pink on the inside?) as they sprang into action, and handled the problems we were facing.

My actions yesterday reminded me of something a grandparent would do. Letting the situation play itself out, while initially frustrating, lead to some awesome results.

Patience. My new best friend.

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