Word Of The Day - Patience

Maybe you've heard of the old joke:  "two vultures are sitting on a high mound in the desert looking at a person dying of thirst and exposure.  One vulture says to the other: "patience hell, I'm going to kill that sucker."

Patience when it comes to your happiness is a double edged sword.  If you are too patient life will pass you by.  If you have no patience at all, the stress will leave you unhappy.  Therefore, where is the balance?  Are you in balance?  Do you know yourself well enough evaluate your patience level?  Do you know situations well enough to know when to be patient and when not to be patient?

As you can see, I'm putting the patience meter on YOU!  I know my patience meter.  I know my patience balance.  I know the answer to the questions above - do YOU?  Happiness is the forgotten ingredient in life.  Patience plays a significant role in your happiness.

They say patience comes with age.  For me, that statement is true.  I didn't have any patience before thirty.  It affected my happiness in business and personal life.  Forty is when I started to understand that being impatient was not making me happy.  At thirty, I had little or no patience with my kids, my wife, car drivers, stupid people, incompetent service people, my bosses and my employees.  My impatience not only stressed me out, it also stressed out the people I was dealing with.  This made all of us unhappy.

Around forty I started to realize that the outside world will not always act or do what I wanted them to do.  Stupid people don't want to be stupid - it's just their DNA.  Hiring incompetent people is my fault.  Hire someone else.  Car drivers just don't care about other car drivers so what is the sense in being impatient with them - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!  Kids are just that - Kids.  Their impatience meter is off the chart.  Therefore, the more patient I became with them, the more patient they became.  The same is true with your spouse.

Being impatient with my bosses did not work.  I realized that I had two choices. One, accept that these bosses were not going to move at my pace and find ways to encourage them to move faster.  Two, realize that I can't live with their pace and knowing it will not change, move on to a different job that has different bosses or find another company that might have better bosses.

In my long career I did both.  I took different jobs within the company to work for people that were on par with my patient meter.  Some of these jobs were deemed a demotion by others. I saw them as a happier work environment which led to getting more done and getting promotions.  I left Xerox to go to a smaller more aggressive technical company because I could not live with the pace of Xerox's upper management. I gave up a lot of money and security, but I gained a lot more happiness.

You may say: "why do I have to be patient?  Why can't they stop treating me like this?  The answer is simple - happiness.  Not my happiness.  Not their happiness.  YOUR HAPPINESS!!

before you react, take a deep breath and consider if your impatience will lead to your happiness.  Impulsive reaction to situations or people usually leads to overreaction - which usually leads to impatience - which usually leads to unhappiness.

Now, because I'm the one writing this blog, I get to talk out of both sides of my mouth.  The side of the "patience" double edge sword is being too patient.  I would not have achieved senior level positions in business if I was too patient.  I would not have been able to get the most out of my employees if I was too patient.  I would have never left my first wife if I was too patient.  that would have led to years of unhappiness.

The bottom line is understand your patient meter.  try to get you patience/impatience in balance.  Not too much - not too little - just right.  Lastly, focus on your happiness.  Be patient if it makes you happy.  Be impatient if it makes you happy.  Don't be patient if it makes you unhappy.  Don't be impatient if it makes you unhappy.  Happiness is your goal because:

YOU DESERVE IT!!!