Patience: A Virtue I Don’t Have (But Should)

I’ve done some soul searching this week and have realized something unpleasant about myself: I have absolutely no patience, and it makes me an asshole sometimes.

Mood music:

That lack of patience tends to present itself a few times each year. Usually, it’s because I’m waiting for an important event to happen — travel to a security conference, for example.

Other times, it’s when a career opportunity presents itself and the waiting process feels like an eternity.

Lately, a lot of it is about getting work done on the old building that housed the family business, so we can lease out the spaces.

Whatever the trigger, it turns me into the kind of person I don’t like — a pushy bastard. A nag, in other words.

Which is kind of amusing, since I despise being nagged.

I’m sure that getting this way has actually caused things I wanted to not happen in the end. Push a process and the people behind it too far and the machinery breaks down. Or people simply decide you’re too much of a jerk to bother with.

When the impatience kicks in, my brain dissolves in flames. Waiting physically hurts. And 99 percent of the time, it’s not a life-or-death situation.

I know where it comes from: It’s one of the more insidious side effects of my OCD. First the delusions of grandeur build up and turn into a kind of high. Then it dissolves into panic and edginess.

The only remedy is for me to catch myself in the act, as I have this time.

If you’ve been one of my victims lately, I apologize and will try to do better.

"Persistence of Time," by Salvador Dali
“Persistence of Time,” by Salvador Dali

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