The Virtue of Patience

(BTW~ Today is Saturday 9/12/2009 but apparently blogspot doesn't agree with me.)

Since it's the weekend, I didn't do much career related activity today. I woke up, made my usual double shot of Danesi Gold espresso, heated up some lactose-free milk (not frothed, I don't like the foam) and had my daily dose of caffeine deliciousness. Then I checked my email, took care of a few quick items in the group I'm a manager of on LinkedIn, read a few things on Facebook and Twitter, and ran out to do some errands.

So, what does this have to do with patience, you ask? Well, everything. Let me explain. In this culture of instant gratification, when we have stuff to do, we want to get in, do what's necessary, get out and move on. Well, sometimes, it just doesn't work that way, no matter how hard we want it to.

I left the house and managed to hit every single red light between here and my destination(s). It was raining on and off all day, sometimes a light drizzle, sometimes a moderate mist, and other times, just oozing ominousness with a bunch of low hanging clouds, only threatening to rain. A very gray day. Because of this, no one was playing golf, baseball, tennis or anything else that couldn't be done indoors. They were all SHOPPING. And apparently, at the same stores as I was. Between waiting for parking spots, navigating around noisy kids in crowded aisles (gosh that bugs me~~ if they're misbehaving, take care of it!!) and standing in line after line after line, with each stop I got more and more antsy.

Then, it dawned on me. I'm unemployed. It's a Saturday. It's raining. The rest of the world works Monday through Friday and this is their only chance to get all this stuff done. Stores are so used to the diminished traffic caused by the sluggish economy, they're all running on skeleton crews. I don't work. Saturday may as well be Wednesday at lunch time to me. Why was I in such a hurry? Suddenly the trio of women in front of me in line, competing to see who had spent the LEAST money on Halloween and Thanksgiving PRESENTS (since when do people give gifts on these holidays?? That one threw me for sure!), each one with more junk than the one before, slowly started loading their goods onto the belt. That's when I saw it. Glass. Porcelain. Ceramic. Candy dishes, cookie jars, chatchke bowls, you name it. Everything, and I mean everything, was breakable. I was doomed!! As I watched the cashier ring up each item, one at a time, I felt myself get anxious for a split second. Then a strange feeling rushed over me. "What else do I have to do right now? Where else  am I 'gonna' go??"  I suddenly realized the answer (that this was my last stop of the day). All of a sudden my breathing slowed, my heart stopped thumping quite so loudly in my chest, and I turned around to look at the line behind me. They didn't know what they were in for. I felt bad for them!

I was cured. It  didn't matter. I patiently waited for the cashier to lovingly wrap each turkey shaped top and its matching potbelly bottom, each 'for-no-reason' ceramic pumpkin and a dozen green 'who-knows-what-they're-for' bowls and place them at the end of her station. Over and over, and over. About fifteen minutes later, it was finally my turn. I handed her my goods, casually signed the sales slip, took my ten items and slowly sauntered back to my car. And it was OK.

I had seen an article on CNN last night and was very grateful that I had a car to go back to, and a home, and enough money to get everything I needed without thinking about it, as I ran all those errands today. It was about someone unemployed who had become homeless. You can read it here. To celebrate my new sense of dealing with a slow day (and the potential of a big interview next week), I came home and appeared (literally!) as a 'virtual guest' on the 'virtual couch' of a blogger I met through networking! That was really fun. http://www.winewhoreblog.com/2009/09/take-seat.html. Life is so much nicer when you don't sweat the small stuff. I need to do that more often! I think in regards to the theme of my blog, this entry falls somewhat under "whimsical rambling."