Patience

This vacation has been a pleasant exercise of patience, which sounds like a total paradox, I know. It started with our arrival at JFK, New York. {J} and I had cruised through the passport control, but {M} having a Dutch passport had to wait for more than an hour in line. Looking around him while waiting, he noticed how the airport employees stayed calm, collected and friendly. Not rushing the people whose turn it was, but taking the time to help them. While {M} was standing in line and observing all this, {J} and I were waiting at the baggage claim area and I was doing my own observations. During our wait, there was a change in shifts and colleagues were greeting each other with hugs and talking animated with each other. This was not an exception, it seemed like most of the people there genuinely loved their job and the people they work with. Taking this all in, I found it fascinating, people working in an environment filled with stressed out and agitated passengers and seemingly not being affected by it.

For me being in a time in my life where the stress has been taking its toll on me, this made me think. I don’t believe that the people I was observing were all naturally relaxed, cheerful and patient. I think it’s a process where they purposely and purposefully work on this everyday. It’s a choice they have to make everyday and I believe that practice makes perfect. Observing all this and thinking about it has been somewhat of an exercise I’ve been repeating over the last week. Driving for hours on end calls for patience as well. It calls for me to be more mindful, to live in the here and now. Not planning ahead for the next hour, day, week, etc. but to really enjoy the here and now. This is not something I am good at, but up until now it’s been a (mostly) pleasant exercise with hopefully lasting benefits.