Losing Wait...

Patience is something that is slowly dying, dear friends. You know what? I’m going to immediately amend that statement. Patience has, at least during the rise of my generation to young adulthood, been wheezing away on its deathbed. There really isn’t anything slow about it anymore. The death of patience and going with the flow has been rather swift. It’s really an unfortunate way to go for something so slow and calm in nature.

It has always been easy for me to accept life how it comes and simply ride the waves of the universe. Things will work out one way or another. The book I ordered will eventually come, at some point I will hear back about that job interview, and oftentimes I allow myself to get lost on my way…just because. Perhaps that is one of my gifts, but it can sometimes be frustrating, too. Especially in such a place as New York City. I have found so few people who have patience for anything anymore. Cars driven by frantic drivers honk their horns as if that alone will cause the traffic before them to disintegrate into nothing. Without hesitation or even a hint of remorse, endless crowds of people shove by one another to reach their next momentary destination. Everything here is go, go, go!

My generation hasn’t helped matters at all. We’ve grown up in an era of near instant gratification, and it shows no signs of slowing. The rowers will keep on rowing until mechanized arms replace them to keep the boat moving ever faster into goodness knows what. Amusements come only from handheld gadgets and streamed television shows (TV’s are much too slow, don’t you know?). And those who stop to smell the flowers will likely find them trampled in the wake of the stampede.

The loss of wait in our society is becoming ever more apparent. Any of us who have inklings of patience left in our blood, the few of us that remain, are slapped in the face with this truth fact every single day. Compared to most of the people I encounter on a daily basis, I feel like I’m severely over-wait. I’m a glutton of patience, and the rest are gaunt figures wasting away in their hurried lives until there is nothing left.

I catch myself, too, sometimes losing wait here and there. When I do, I feel the loss, and it makes me sad.

So today, right now, right this very instant…take a moment and stop. Allow yourself to ease into the natural flow of things for a bit, and put some wait back onto your bones. This is my Monday charge to you, dear readers. Take up the oars and let the boat drift where it will for a while. Things will be okay, I promise.