As a child when I wanted something immediately my mother would tell me that patience is a virtue and that I needed to learn more of it. And although my patience has improved over the years, I still get very impatient at times.
We live in a very impatient society — a time where we get most of what we want quickly, often even instantly via the internet. Instant responses are relatively normal now and we’ve been trained to expect it.
Yesterday Ross needed some more supplies for his current project so we stopped at the shop and I waited in the car. When he came out he commented on my patience and I said that it wasn’t really any different to when he waits for me when I go into a shop. Although sometimes I think he gets the short end of the stick there. But that started a discussion on patience and how some people are very short on it now.
We don’t wait for our vegetables to grow — just go to the supermarket and buy them already grown. Of course not everyone has access to ground to grow their own, but I do enjoy planting seeds, watching for them to sprout and nurturing the seedlings when I’ve planted them in the garden. Protecting them from the snails and slugs until I can eventually harvest and use. Reward for may efforts, very satisfying and even calming in times of stress. We’ve nurtured an avocado that sprouted in the garden. Ross staked it up, we covered it in plastic during the frost season and now it has grown to around ten feet tall. But extreme patience is required in growing an avocado — it has been five years and although we have a lovely tree in the back yard, nothing else has developed. A few weeks ago I noticed something different about it and it appeared to have some flowers. I searched online for avocados and yes, it appears to be flowering so perhaps we will at last get some fruit. But then I see that it takes twelve months for fruit to form and ripen. Bummer ! So now we have to wait another year to maybe get some fruit.
I can search online for any information I need on my phone or computer. There is no need to drive to the library and then go searching for what I need. So yes we have developed into an impatient society but I’d like to give a big shout out to all those people in Melbourne who’ve had no choice but to be patient over theist few months. For those in lockdown it must have required an enormous amount of patience whilst they waited for the numbers of new Covid-19 cases and deaths to drop, but it seems their patience is about to be rewarded. Soon they may be released from their lockdown and permitted to return to their former lives — albeit still with some restrictions but better.
I’d just like to say thank you to those Melbournians who suffered through this for us all — we do appreciate it here in regional Victoria.
#copingsuicide #blacklivesmatter #lockdown