Anything valuable

Julia ♦ September 22, 2023 ♦ 2 Comments

It’s a good thing we didn’t have to wait for these trees to grow.
Sequoia National Park, 2013, by Tuxyso, CC by SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

“Anything valuable is going to take time. Be patient and tolerant with yourself and others.” — Alexandra Stoddard

I think technology is training us to be impatient. Recently I turned on an old computer so I could use it while the one I typically use was in the midst of a lengthy maintenance procedure. At first, I thought something was wrong with the old one, because it was taking so long to do everything. Then I realized that it was just a bit slower because of its age, and what seemed like a long time was actually less than a minute.

Saving time has climbed to the top of our priority lists, and for good reason. There are many wonderful things we can be doing with that time, so it is natural for us to be greedy with it. The problem is that impatience actually robs us of the enjoyment we seek. I can’t think of any difficulty that is not made worse by impatience, nor any joy that is not made better by taking the time to savor it.

I might attempt to rationalize my own impatience by telling myself it’s useful; that those of us who are impatient somehow manage to hurry things along. On reflection, though, this idea is mostly a delusion. Ever caught yourself hitting an elevator button or a walk signal button repeatedly because you got tired of waiting? I know I have, many times, even though I know it doesn’t help anything.

No matter what you are doing today, it’s likely that there will be something that takes longer than you want it to. If a robot answers your phone call and puts you on hold, or if someone you are waiting for is late, or if you are standing in a long line, try to find ways to turn your attention elsewhere. Keep a small book or magazine with you and read for a few minutes, or turn your held call on speaker while you attend to something different. Check your email, load the dishwasher, file your nails. I guarantee you that the time will go faster if you do something else while you wait.

But if you’re not able to do any of those things, just close your eyes and visualize those gorgeous giant redwoods, and think about how long it took them to grow. Aren’t we lucky they were waiting for us when we arrived on this earth?

This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.