Patience

So many aspects of our lives require a little patience. Problem is we live in a society hellbent on self-gratification every three minutes and when having to take a little time to deal with something, feel they don’t have time or the patience to deal with it. Even when it is explained what it is they need to do, we hear “I don’t have time for that”. Frustration mounting and they still won’t deal with the solution because it will take too much time. I raised three kids, for six years by myself, and I never felt I didn’t have time to do what was needed to be done. The same ones I see telling me they have no time are also the same ones I see mindlessly going through social media accounts for hours and playing games for several hours more. Maybe it isn’t a matter of not having enough time, it is more a need to prioritize what is actually important and not. But it is hard to wean off the adrenaline and self-gratification of dopamine it’s overwhelming effect, and no one is willing to go through the withdrawal process of reducing the need for medicating oneself by getting likes and comments on posts. The awareness of things through information should be maximized by these people and I’m sure it is. But the application of the information takes too much time and therefore they stay in space void of patience to apply what they know and take the time to see it to the end even when that might take hours or days to fully resolve. The result often in my family is that I research what needs to be done and then I waste my own precious time helping them.

The previous scenario is just one example of the lack of patience today. We see it from all levels of life in every country and government. Our current president may be almost eighty years old, but you’d think he was a teenager with his inability to deal with situations around the world and his focus on his truth social account. The Iran war is a prime example, he thought the USA would be in and out in forty-eight hours like the they were in Venezuela, but the outcome is self-evident that he doesn’t read his security briefings and even more likely he only listens to the people that tell him what he wants to hear whether reality plays a part in the information received or not. After two weeks, he is beside himself and he still has to deal with it. Like many, I believe the only reason he started this war with Iran was to deflect the media away from the endless pursuit of the truth about Epstein and those guilty of being complicit with Epstein. Laughingly though, then the first lady has a news conference saying she is tired of being implicated with Epstein and she wants Congress to speak to the victims. I bet Trump was not very happy with that as he probably thought he was successful in diverting attention away from it all. So that happens and he immediately finds someone or something else to refocus attention on and he decides it was appropriate to depict himself as Jesus and get into a verbal debate with Pope Leo. This refocus complete with the vice president, a recently converted Catholic, being opiniated about what Pope Leo should focus on as if Vance is the authority on all things religious. These people just don’t stop making us divert our attention and making us all somewhat participants in the no patience society and dopamine addicted social media driven world we live in.

How do we get away from this lifestyle or is it even possible? I certainly don’t have anything to contribute in how except putting down the phone long enough to take care of the things needing to be done. Full attention applied versus the standard half-ass results we get today from so many people and services. I was driving down to Jasper Texas a few weeks ago and there were signs for construction and and a lane closure. As I got closer to the work are, I saw heavy equipment and three men. All of them were looking at their phones and no work was being done. A great image for the Texas Department of Transportation, but sadly I’m sure this something you’d see anywhere. I certainly don’t accuse everyone of this, in fact I know there are enough folks that have resisted the draw or have been much better at adjusting their time to accomplish all needed, both in home and work life. I think the phone limit is a starting point, but what else can we do? Not sure there is a simple answer to that. I suspect this lifestyle will be getting more focused on gratification and changing news reels and with the advent of artificial intelligence, the diversion media will get faster and faster in delivery and full of bullet points and no substance. It seems to be the way everyone reads information these days, although many still read books as entertainment. It amazes me that many still do this and manage to find time for it. I hope as the pendulum swings back, that balance is the forefront of life and that more patience is involved in accomplishing those things that take more time than hitting a like button or sharing some content. I hope for more patience in not only tasks but patience in our fellow man too. The frustration level in this country needs to lower and we need to be able to rationalize what others are doing along with the prioritizing of our own twenty-four hours a day. I think Wilford Brimley was right when he said in the movie “Crossfire”, “if you take your time, you’ll get a more harmonious outcome”.