Bird Droppings June 5, 2010
Can we wait?

I missed writing during a weekday for the first time in some while yesterday and all day I felt as if something was missing. There has been so much in my family the past week and today a wedding of one of my cousin’s children. I wish for them a joyous and wonderful day. With that we have an excuse for our entire family to be home at one time so last night nearly every sleeping space was taking with spare folks and dogs. It will be a great weekend.

“People count up the faults of those who are keeping them waiting.” French Proverb

How do we have patience with people who should know better? I went for a hair cut yesterday and my hair cuts are not that big of a process, number three blade blended sides and back and about a half inch on top. The girls who were working were very busy and it was interesting with customers sitting waiting one or two would break after each customer and miss one for every two others finished. I am a patient person but I do not wait well in crowds and was getting a bit frustrated however with a wedding today I needed a hair cut.

“Our patience will achieve more than our force.” Edmund Burke

“Let this be understood, then, at starting; that the patient conquest of difficulties which rise in the regular and legitimate channels of business and enterprise is not only essential in securing the success which you seek but it is essential to that preparation of your mind, requisite for the enjoyment of your successes, and for retaining them when gained. So, day by day, and week by week; so month after month, and year after year, work on, and in that process gain strength and symmetry, and nerve and knowledge, that when success, patiently and bravely worked for, shall come, it may find you prepared to receive it and keep it,” Josiah Gilbert Holland

Patience does pays off, it is so difficult to wait even when we know this watching and waiting. However in the class room it is patience that often wins the battle with a student who may not have ever had a teacher who was patient.

“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.” Barbara Johnson

There have been times when stripping the gears probably would have felt good and maybe helped a child along the way out the door. But often that rash action can be avoided if only waiting a few moments and the ideal solution will prevail. As I read files of kids who come through my door many are ADHD and I am one to not look lightly on that diagnosis but one recent graduate sitting at graduation for nearly an hour had his hat on and off nearly a hundred times. He would hold it fan himself drop it and pick it up and I am surprised he made it through the entire program.

“Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in one ahead.” Bill Mcglashen

“Consider the hour-glass; there is nothing to be accomplished by rattling or shaking; you have to wait patiently until the sand, grain by grain, has run from one funnel into the other.” John Christian Morgenstern

It can be so difficult to wait at times especially when children are involved. In education many times we see teacher who really should not be teaching, altering and literally taking away from a child’s education and it is hard to watch for me. But time and patience will prevail and I am an advocate of that. In watching a softball game swinging at every pitch accomplishes nothing especially if they are bad pitches. Swinging at the exact right moment drives in runs and wins the game.

“If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.” Sir Isaac Newton

“Patience in the present, faith in the future, and joy in the doing” George Perera

I was never very good at fishing. Could be why I do not fish much at all. It might be that sitting and watching the bobber in the water just never appealed to me. But I recall my cousin in Naples Florida who would cast his line where others were fishing waiting as I wait and hook a big fish every time. Simply waiting is not patience, but it is also knowing, what it is you are doing and when to do it. My cousin knew where to cast and with what bait and the exact time. All I knew was I didn’t like to fish because I never caught anything. Patience is more tha waiting it is also knowledge.

“Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.” Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

So often as a child sitting looking at the pile of presents under the tree at Christmas it was difficult to understand why we had to wait. But the interaction with family when it was time was worth the wait. Accomplishing the goal is worth the wait. Waiting for the right pitch or right moment to cast that line for the trophy fish is worth the wait. Patience is a difficult task to learn yet one of the most valuable in life. It is a difficult task to teach but with with experience it is one in which we learn by doing. As we end a week keep all in harms way on your mind and in your heart.
namaste
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