Tag: patience

Seeds

“The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. Be patient and stay the course.” – Fabienne Fredrickson

My youngest son has started a sales job this summer, and this past week he has experienced a lot of frustration, feeling like his efforts aren’t going anywhere. Having been in sales, at his same age, I remember those feelings all too well. A huge part of doing well in sales is keeping the faith and staying the course. In sales, you tend to get disappointed by targets you work your tush off for, and then end up with delicious surprise sales, that almost seem like a gift out of nowhere. The fruits of your labors, often pop out where you least expect them to be.

I remember reading once, that if we instantly got everything that we wanted right when we asked for it, we would quickly become overwhelmed. (Ever arrive home to a pile of Amazon boxes at your front door, full of impulse purchases??) We would soon find out that half the things that we thought we wanted, were things that we really didn’t want, in the long run. Ideas and creations and intentions that have spent some time, hibernating, cocooning, and then even some more time percolating and simmering, usually give us the best refined and blooming results of whatever it is that we are truly and ultimately seeking.

Plant your seeds. Do what you can for these seeds. Water them, make sure they get some light and heat, fertilize your seeds with excitement and optimism, but don’t hover over them, with wringing hands. Be patient. Believe that before you know it, you will be filling baskets full of the ripe fruits of your own labors.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Patience is a Virtue

“How many opportunities of being happy do you miss by giving all of your attention to what brings you angst?” – (Valencia, Twitter)

I got a little triggered yesterday. I went on to my Nextdoor app (which is social media for your local neighborhoods, often used to share local news or to sell items or to report lost pets, etc.) and the thread that was bursting at the seams, considering our local neighborhood news, was the angst over not being able to get a vaccine yet. In Florida, anyone over the age of 65, is now eligible to get a vaccine to prevent the coronavirus, if it is available. And the system for getting the vaccine is flawed. The phone lines are jammed. The technology for setting the appointments blew up, and people were having hissy fits the likes you’ve never seen. I am sure that there were a lot of people, while writing hysterical commentary on the Nextdoor app, were having their blood pressures go through the roof. And let’s remember, the vaccine just got approved for public use, on December 14th.

It’s okay to be upset. The system for getting the vaccine certainly has to be improved, and it will be. Just like how obtaining masks, or getting coronavirus tests, or even, acquiring toilet paper, in the beginning of this pandemic was next to mission impossible, I now own a pile of masks in every color, shape and form, I can obtain toilet paper at any level of softness that I want, and I could get a coronavirus test today, from more than one place, and know the results in fifteen minutes. This is America. We are inventive. We are forward thinking. We are capitalists. It is in everyone’s best interest to get the vaccine, especially in the interests of the moneyed powers that be. Therefore, once the kinks are worked out, I have no doubts that everyone who wants the vaccine, will get one, sooner than any of us think.

We are like a football team who is playing against a team that we have never played before. We are having to make new plays in the middle of the game, and then we are having to make adjustments when our plays don’t work. We are having to play with, and against players, who have all different level of skills, and unique personal agendas. There are going to be a lot of mistakes. There are going to be a lot of unfair plays, and a lot of missed calls. Some people have been seriously hurt, and others still are going to get hurt. At the end of the game, the coaches are really going to have to study the tape, to see what went right and what went wrong, in order to play a better, more solid game in the future. Some of these coaches may be shown to be underperforming, and they will be replaced. Still, we are going to win this game against the coronavirus. The momentum is with us in a major way. We have a vaccine. We have more than one vaccine . . . . . in less than a year!!!!

During the long year of 2020, we often claimed that the good that came out of our experience, is that we were learning the value of patience. We we learning not to take the people, things, and experiences that we were blessed with for granted, by acting entitled. We claimed to have learned how strong and able, we really are, in tough circumstances. How quickly we forget our “lessons” sometimes! We will prevail if we keep calm and carry on using safe, social distancing practices just a little while longer. Let’s be team players and see this game through to victory.

The Virtue of Patience

Cute Pictures of Kylie Jenner and Her Daughter, Stormi | POPSUGAR ...

When I fire up the computer every morning, I like to check out Twitter to see what is trending. This morning, there was yet another clip, trending hard, related to the Kardashian clan. I’m ashamed to say that I instantly put on my cynical, snarky hat right away, as I pressed play on yet another LOOK AT ME “Hollywood brat” video. This video was depicting, the young mother, Kylie Jenner teaching her little toddler, Stormi, about patience. She left a giant bowl of candy (they kind of look like designer M&Ms), right in front of the little girl, and then Kylie, the gorgeous, young billionaire mom, said that she had to go to the bathroom. (For those of you who don’t know, Stormi’s parents are Kylie Jenner, a 20-something make-up mogul billionaire (yes-billionaire), and her father is Travis Scott, a rap music megastar.) When Kylie got back from going to the bathroom, she told Stormi that she could have three pieces, out of the giant bowl of candy, sitting right in front of her. But, she had to wait for her mother to return. Stormi nodded, showing that she understood the directions from her mother. Kylie then leaves little Stormi, in her adorable outfit, on a beautiful designer couch the size of California, seated right in front of a giant bowl, of designer, color-coordinated M&Ms. The audience watches the little girl hemming and hawing and keeping a good, constant eye on the bowl of candy. At one moment, Stormi wraps her arms around the bowl, as if to hug it, or perhaps to just dive into it, like our dog Ralphie does, with his food bowl, every night when he is fed, but the teeny, tiny, adorable toddler stops herself from her own impulse. Instead, she sits back on the couch, and starts singing to herself, a sweet little song about patience. When her mother returns, she claps excitedly about finally getting to eat three little pieces. The two-year-old little girl did better than I would have done, even now, and she is only two! I personally would have done the Ralphie dive right into the candy bowl, probably from the get-go and I certainly wouldn’t have stopped at three pieces.

Some things stick with you your whole life. This video on patience reminded me of one of those things. When I was just a young kid, a friend of mine taught me a little song which she had learned at Vacation Bible School and it stuck with me. I never forgot it. I sang the song to my children (despite the eyerolls) when they were little ones. It goes like this:

“Be patient! Be patient, for God is patient, too! And think of all the times that God has had to wait for you!”

It struck me that little children and little songs have a lot to teach all of us. We are all going through an enormous lesson in patience with this coronavirus nightmare. We can do it. We can weather through this storm. As a darling little two-year-old shows us, patience, as hard as it is, has already been programmed into us. We have the ability to be patient, even if we have to remind ourselves, with simple, little, catchy tunes. Sometimes we just have to be reminded of the fact, that we are able to remain patient, in the simplest and in the most heartwarming of ways.

Famous Quotes About Patience | Patience Picture Quotes, Famous ...

Inner Internet

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t. – Erica Jong

I have often repeated this quote to my family.  What happens when you spout quotes to the people you love, is that they often spout them back to you.  This one was recently boomeranged back to me via my husband.  At least I know that my family members are listening to me, I suppose.

I tend to get obsessive when I want a definitive answer to something that is bothering me.  I look up every website that might even just have a word that will help me with a problem or an issue.  It’s embarrassing to see even Google reminding me that I had just been at that same website two minutes ago or “you have visited this website many times.”  Why is it that I know that nothing will be different on the website that I just visited 2 minutes prior and many times before that, but I’m still hoping for a different glean of knowledge?

I believe that we are designed by the Divine to have the answers within us.  I’m a believer in prayer, but the older I get the more I realize that there is often a better plan for me and my situations than my limited vision sees.  My prayer is more and more often, “Help me to know that the answers are already within.  Help me go with the flow, knowing that everything is in accordance to Divine plan and help me to trust that knowledge.”

I watched a speaker recently who said that if we pray for patience, often we are going to get a long line at a bank.  Experience is our teacher.  God isn’t going to always swoop in and make things easy for us.  We parents know how hard it is to watch our children struggle to learn to walk, and then to read, and then to drive and then to drive off towards lives of their own.  We want to make it all easy for them, but we know it’s not for their best, so we sit on our hands, send our outpouring of love to them and know, in faith, that they are going to be okay.  We know that they have all of the tools to handle life, right inside of them, if they get quiet enough to listen to their own inner wisdom.

I think that we must have a built-in internet, full of knowledge and understanding right at the click of our hearts.  The good thing is that this “inner internet” doesn’t send us embarrassing reminders that we have been at this fork in the road 82 times already.  Our inner wisdom has the patience to know that we will “get it” eventually, because we already “have it”.  We just have to come to the acceptance of what we already know.