Thursday, March 23, 2006

rediscovering patience

People who know me would already know that I don't like waiting for people, its a real waste of time, no matter if you have a lot or a little of it. Its a far cry from the past where time was not essential and therefore was no object, especially in college where we'd make appointments at 10 in the morning and then end up oversleeping or something similar.

So after working for a couple of years you experience an important aspect of life: its called karma. What goes around comes around. What better way to experience that than to wait for someone who's late. So after that I decided that I needed to change. Now I'm super punctual, and I like that fact. I know some people who are painfully early for meetings, better to be early than to be late, they say. But for some reason I practice a more 'just in time' method.

Recently, however, several events forced me to be patient. So, the whole idea of patience is time, and waiting. Is it a waste of time? I started wondering about that. What constitutes a waste of one's time? Well, most people would retort that the time wasted can be more efficiently spent at work. Or, I could be doing all these things instead of sitting here doing nothing. But if a person sits in one place doing nothing, then that's exactly what is happening. However if the said person sits there doing something, then of course, something will be done. That redrew the whole concept of looking at things differently, because all around us, there is something to be done. Its the age of telecommuting, and multitasking and bringing work with you wherever you go, even if you don't have a job that allows you that freedom, just by reading a book, or writing, or sketching, allows you to expand your horizons wherever you are, and when you do that you aren't exactly wasting your time.

I also rediscovered meditation. Sitting there in deep relaxation, making up for all the hours of lost sleep, is quite soothing. I guess after a while, patience really is a really far off concept for a lot of people in this fast-paced society that we live in. I know I don't have it, but its good to know that at least now I'm rediscovering it.