Once I was Mr. Cool. But technology has put me in an impatient hurry to get nowhere
I remember being a more patient person.
Mr. Cool.
Calm, collective, sweatless.
I was not in a hurry to get here. There. Anywhere. Everywhere.
I would listen intently while others spoke to me. Eye to eye. Focus. Not once would I interrupt them or try to finish the sentence for them.
I listened to every voice mail message on my cellphone.
I left detailed, clear voice mail phone messages to others.
I had all the time in a day.
Today, I don’t have time to listen to or send voice mails.
Sometimes, I interrupt others mid-sentence. It’s rude. It happens again.
I don’t know what happened to Mr. Cool.
Instant gratification, including immediate information, is not only expected, it’s normal.
Blame cell phones, internet, 24/7 news, streaming TV.
But I have lost my virtue of patience.
I want today’s news delivered to my phone yesterday.
I want a kind, gracious store clerk to personally check me out, but I don’t want to wait in a long line for it to happen.
Whatever happened to tipping the help after the service experience and not before?
It’s easier to blame technology than my lack of patience.
I’m not pressed for time, so I need to quit telling myself I am.
Holidays press on our patience levels. Christmas used to be saved for December. Black Friday used to happen on a Friday. Candy and red hearts are ready for the shelves. Easter baskets are in the back room.
I’m old enough to remember when the quickest way to get sports news was calling into a special sports phone line at KMOX radio and receiving recorded updates.
I can remember a day in a work office when most workers still worked in an office. I wore a suit and tie every day to work, too. I would stand by an old facsimile machine for as long as it took to drink a full cup of coffee. Occasionally, the fax machine’s paper feed got jammed. I’d go to the office land phone. Call the sender. Ask that the important document be faxed again.
Get a fresh cup of coffee.
And wait.
Patiently.
Fax was the fastest, and only, way to send and receive information.
I have reached a stage of life when I’m supposed to be slowing down, but I’ve convinced myself that I’m always running late.
As my dad used to say, “You’re always in a hurry to get nowhere.”
Dad was often late but never in a hurry to get there.
I have a daily ritual of losing my keys, wallet or phone. Of the three, the one that brings me the most anxiety is my phone. I can replace everything in my wallet. I have an extra set of keys. But phone? All the contacts? It’s paralyzing.
When I’m looking for my lost phone, I’m anything but patient.
I live alone but blame others.
I will have checked my car just before I remember I was just on the phone, in my house.
Music’s playing too loudly, and I can’t concentrate where I placed my keys, wallet and phone.
A simple reflection on a cold winter evening, when it’s dark at 4:30 p.m., which made me impatiently reflect on summer sights when there was daylight at 8:30 p.m. and I was on my bike on the Eckert’s Loop trail. I miss a lot of things, but none as much as those four hours of evening daylight.
I don’t make resolutions because you only set yourself up to fail. But I am going to work on my patience in 2025. Slow it down. Take a walk, smell the flowers.
In 2025, I will:
Wait in a line. Chat with the person in front of me about the weather. Read the National Enquirer. Talk myself out of a candy bar if it’s a grocery store.
Listen to a voice mail. The whole, rambling message.
Leave a voice mail. Don’t hang up immediately.
Call an old friend. Forget the texts. Get on the phone. Talk about old times. Tell stories. What’s the hurry?
Try on clothes before I buy them. It’s a painful pause. That tiny dressing room. Up close to the big mirror and all. All those little pins and wearing socks only. But it’s time to go back to old-school because I have a closet with too many clothes that are the right size in the store but don’t fit right. Why didn’t I try them on? Pressed for time, of course.
