One of the things that I learned in life is that it is mostly about waiting.
Why am I saying this? I was thinking long ago when was a kid and used to wait for the bus. I lived outside of town and that meant that the bus service to school was not always reliable. There was a time that we were told was supposed to be the pickup time, but it could vary as much as 15 minutes. That might not sound like a lot, but when you live in a mountain state with bitterly cold winds it can be difficult as a kid.
No, I am not telling you this to get your sympathy. I survived that and I am fine. It is more about just saying that your schedule is not other people’s schedule, and you have to have a fair amount of patience while others do their best to keep their promises.
Or maybe they don’t keep their best. I don’t know. The fact is that we don’t control anything. When we accept that we are a small cog in a big wheel, we accept that things happen and we just have to go with the flow. Does this mean you are unimportant and shouldn’t be serviced? Of course not, but it does mean that we need to take ourselves less seriously and look at things in a wider context.
For example, in every relationship I have had, people didn’t keep their promises to me. I’m not just talking personal but also professional. When people don’t keep their promises I learn that they can’t be depended on and trusted, so I don’t trust them. It doesn’t matter to other people to keep promises anymore but it matters to me. I keep my promises no matter what. What does this have to do with waiting? Even when you have to wait you still keep your promises.
Many people at the first sign of stress say I am out of this job or relationship or whatever. We don’t give things time to develop. It takes time to believe in another person and to show them that they are important to us. It takes time and patience to stick with someone or something that can be helpful for both parties. I often wonder about why we move from situations that if we had been patient would have successes beyond our imagination.
We are so focused on doing as a culture, that we need to learn that the other side of the coin is waiting to reap the benefits.