Selective Patience

I will wait 10 minutes in a huge line to get Tim Hortons and not think twice (just did it this morning), but if I have to wait more than 5 minutes at the ATM I am livid...and don't tell me its a reward thing...I get coffee at one place, but I get money at the other...so I can buy coffee and other things (beer). But we have selective patience it would seem...I have no patience for someone going 5 km/h under the speed limit, and in reality they are only making me about 1 minute later to get where I am going....and I am going to work so they are actually doing me a favor! (Just kidding, I love my job...now), but I will wait for 10 minutes at the water slide with my daughter and not an errant word would spout from my mouth.

So why are we these parodoxial creatures when it comes to waiting....in Atlantic Canada our patience is tested less...I have been in large cities where sitting on a highway not moving in your car for 20 minutes is consider normal; that would be a huge pile up here in rural Canada (hell in Rio you just assume that you will sit idle for 2 minutes for ever 2 minutes of moving; which is why when they move, they REALLY move!). I used to live 20 minutes from the "downtown" of the town I live in, and all my friends thought I was crazy for commuting 15-20 minutes everyday...but that kind of commute in many places in world would be considered great. (BTW I now live 2 minutes from my office...so thats awesome!) So maybe its more a matter of relative patience (not talking about having patience with the mom-in-law), as in your patience level is relative to where you are, and what you expect.

Patience relative to location...I have been to these large cities and experienced the patience demands without freaking out...but I still get frustrated if I sit idle for 2 minutes here at home....and my travel mates are the same.

So I am struggling to come to a point...so here it is; I hate slow drivers...get off the flippin cell phone, or pay attention to the speed limits...if it changes from 50 to 80, follow suit....and if you aren't comfortable driving 110km/hr on the highway, get off the bleeding highway! Take some other road....I need to get to Tim Horton's before the line gets too long!

and he leaves the soapbox for the next whiner....

Pay attention to your surroundings...use your noodle

So I have come to realize that the majority of people are completely oblivious to their surroundings. You know what I mean...they don't use their rear view mirror while driving (while texting usually), they push their cart really slow while blocking the whole aisle at the store while looking for the Special K in the cracker aisle, they hold up everyone while boarding a plane so they can make sure their huge carry on is situated just so and they have their book and hand sanitizer close at hand, they take their time loading their change into their change purse while you wait and watch before you can order your latte....you get the picture...and I am getting worked up, so lets continue.


This phenomena gets real scary when we require the general public to make big decisions...like the local election...the vast majority of people don't bother to read up on the issues, and just take the 30 second sound bite from the radio news as the full story on an issue...and the media person is in such a competition for your attention he/she is less interested in delivering the info we need to know, and more interested in grabbing your attention with controversy and buzz words. For example, How many people know that our government is on track to spend 50% of its budget on health care by 2015 (that's only 5 years away!)...and the problem will get worse as our "boomers" continue to retire...and our current anti bacterial, hypochondriac, pandemic fearing tendencies have set us up to run to the health care system every time we have an ache or pain!

There are really complicated and important issues facing our society and we need to be informed and use our collective voice to make sure these issues are addressed. Environmental issues, the demographic time bomb ... these issues will be politically difficult, expensive and long term issues to deal with; so we need to Pay Attention!

It doesn't take hours of study, we have the web and social media...technology makes being informed easier than it ever has been, yet we are getting more detached from each other. It just takes some interest in your fellow human...it comes down to caring about what others are doing/saying...if we let the business men and politically motivated make all the decisions for us, we'll get deeper into the hole.

And then he stepped down from the soap box and went back to work....