Patience

Wisdom has long held that patience is a virtue.  As the saying goes, "All good things come to those who wait."  Yes, patience and waiting go together.  Unfortunately, the word "patience" may soon be listed in our dictionaries as archaic, no longer in use.

We live now in a world that gives highest priority to things that are "instant."  Waiting for anything is seen as annoying and out of sync with the way things should be.  When we hit the "on" switch for any of the electronic items we own, we expect immediate results.  Even a few seconds wait is intolerable.  This carries over to other aspects of our lives as well.

I asked the manager at one of our local supermarkets which is the bigger seller: traditional, long-cooking (relatively speaking that is) oatmeal or what is sold as instant oatmeal.  He answered that more instant oatmeal is sold.  What is the actual time difference between the two items?  Give or take, 5-7 minutes.  I asked the manager why he thought the instant oatmeal sold more.  Yup, his answer included the word "patience."  Why stand over a stove and wait for the old fashioned oats to cook when you can nuke the instant variety in a minute?  He added that "instant" varieties of just about every food type were big sellers--frozen waffles, pancakes and french toast, 'instant' mashed potato flakes, pre-cooked just about anything, frozen ready-cooked dinners etc..

Why are there more and more ready-prepared, take-home food outlets?  A whole lot of people with no patience for the slowness of having to cook food from start to finish at home.  Why are there more and more restaurants?  Same reason.

Even our language exhibits signs of the impatience that people feel today.  Texting and twittering capitalize on this impatience by "requiring" a foreshortened form of English.  And because that foreshortened English is so convenient, users look at standard English as somehow backwards and too oldfashioned to spend time in learning well.

It used to be that patience was a sign of maturity, of being a "grown up."  Little children were always asking "Are we there yet?!"  Adults were supposed to know better, to have developed patience.  Unfortunately, today it is both adults and children who whine "Are we there yet?!"

Watch some drivers at a red light and you see this impatience.  They are tapping the steering wheel, texting or speaking on their cellphones, eating a snack, talking to someone in the car, fiddling with the knobs on the dashboard and turning their head from side to side to see what is going on outside of the car, and sometimes all at the same time.

Look at some of the "rules" in place for shidduch dating and you see impatience perfectly illustrated.  By the fifth or sixth date a couple is either engaged or they are over.  Some of those involved in making shidduchim have even foreshortened this time requirement.  For them, if you don't know for sure that a prospective shidduch is going somewhere by the the third or fourth date, it's over.  And some of this shidduch impatience also applies to how long any individual date may last for.  Most of the "laws" I've seen say a maximum of two hours for a date.  When I read that requirement I really laughed.  Here in NY, getting from a point in one part of the city to a point in another part can easily take you one hour in each direction.  So basically dating couples don't need to go anywhere but just spend the time inside of a car?  Impatience personified.

Yes, I know that today's world also presents us with a lot more to do in those few hours of the day there are to do them.  Yes, I know that lots of people are multi-tasking inundated.  Yes, there may be certain situations where patience is just not possible.  But those same situations are made worse when we don't have the patience to deal with them.

When I mentioned the idea for this posting to someone, they countered with a different old saying: "The race goes to the swift." Patience is an impediment in getting to where you have to go.  A different old saying by Aesop came to the rescue: "Slow and steady wins the race."  But hey, don't take my word for it--read what some others have said about the value of patience.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. ~John Quincy Adams



How poor are they that have not patience!

What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
~William Shakespeare, Othello, 1604

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. 
~Dutch Proverb

Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.
~George-Louis de Buffon

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. ~Chinese Proverb



He that can have PATIENCE can have what he will.
~Benjamin Franklin

It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience.
~Horace Bushnell

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
~Cato the Elder

To end off, let me repeat what many a parent has spoken to their children:  Rome wasn't built in a day.

Speech and Action: The Perfect Marriage of Mind and Body

So many, many conversations in Klal that spew forth words in abundance about what we are doing wrong, about what needs changing. But let someone pen the words "Then we need to say these words strongly to those perpetrating the wrongs, we need to tell them in no uncertain words that change is needed" and suddenly different words come forth. "It will be bad for shidduchim so people won't get up and protest." "Group actions aren't going to work; maybe individual actions might help someone individually."

True, first a problem needs to be articulated before we can begin to see a solution. But once we see the problem clearly, then what? Will our words die unspoken, unfulfilled because we lack the gumption to back up those words with actions? It is the marriage of thoughts, words and actions that will bring about change

Just what deeply hidden fears are truly the cause of our failure to speak and our failure to act? When we neither speak nor act are we not our own worst enemies? And if all we ever do is speak but never follow that speech with action, what have we actually accomplished?

Others have written about speech and action before us; perhaps it is time to listen closely and heed the lessons. But it must be speech that is married to action that we will practice. Otherwise, when History writes the epitaph for our time period, we will be characterized as "Full of the sound and fury, signifying nothing." What is it that we truly fear about taking definite actions? We need to remind ourselves that "It is better to try and fail than never to have tried at all." Klal's problems are not going to be solved solely through a form of "verbal chair aerobics."


Words are plentiful; deeds are precious.-- Lech Walesa

After all is said and done, more is said than done. --Unknown

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. --Abigail Adams

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.--Harriet Beecher Stowe

Words to Ponder

So often we look at others both for the source for and the blame for the absence of happiness.

"Happiness depends upon ourselves."

Aristotle

Words to Ponder

For those who think that wishful thinking is what brings about change:

"Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out."
James Bryant Conant, former president of Harvard

Words to Ponder

"A simple fact that is hard to learn is that the time to save money is when you have some."

Joe Moore

Words to Ponder

On sitting and learning and considering parents as ATMs, some better advice:

"If you don't want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work."

Ogden Nash

Words to Ponder

"If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability."

Henry Ford

Words to Ponder

On playing follow the leader and letting others' words and choices replace our own.

"He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style."

Leo Tolstoy

Words to Ponder

"Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master."

P(hineas) T(aylor) Barnum

Technology and Religion

An interesting article in the JWR on the use of apps for handheld devices and their place in religion. Particularly interesting because of the attitude of some in the frum veldt towards computers and anything that is computer-like. Rabbi Bentzion Twerski makes a particularly interesting point about the use of these apps as regards his work as a mashgiach/kashrut supervisor--almost instant access to product/ingredient lists and explanations, making kashrut decisions quicker and more accurate.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1210/religion_apps.php3

Words to Ponder

Putting money into perspective

"He who loses money loses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But he who loses faith loses all."

Henry H. Haskins

Words to Ponder

Why read books?

"The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them."

Mark Twain

Words to Ponder

"Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

Norman MacEwan

Words to Ponder

Some words from Shakespeare about household finance and money practices.


Polonius:

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."

Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3