We all are in a hurry. I know as soon as you start reading the article, you will be in a hurry to finish it to know what the end is. I’m sure even when you read a book, you first read the excerpt at the back to know what it is all about, you just cannot wait to read till the end without knowing the gist. So, to cut a long story short this article is about impatience, which in my opinion is not a good thing. Now, if you want to know why, continue reading the rest of the article.

Over the years, we tend to learn that being impatient is the only way to get things done our way. We want everything quick and fast. We eat fast food, we order through drive-ins. We blow horns as soon as the signal turns green, we even blow horns in traffic jam. We use short sentences and short forms during conversations. We take shortcuts and overtake people on every possible chance we get. We text instead of calling. We use kiosks for self-checkout because we cannot wait in line. We go for power weekend diet because we cannot wait to shed those fats through yoga.

I’m no exception, I’m also an impatient person. I cut other people’s sentences because I cannot wait to have my say, I curse the slow cashier at the grocery store, I break red lights when I’m late to office, I eat at my work desk and do all the other things that would make me an impatient person. I used to think that this is what successful people did. They are hardworking, they don’t waste time and they are intelligent enough to find their way quickly.

But there was one incident that changed my outlook considerably. I had gone to a coffee shop and was waiting in queue for my turn. The guy at the counter was really slow in serving coffee, and I had no option but to curse him under my breath for making me late. Finally when my turn arrived, I saw that the guy had only 2 fingers in his left hand. I was shocked and at the same time ashamed of myself. My impatience made me draw conclusion that the guy was inefficient when in reality he was more than efficient. It made me see that impatience is not good and it is not needed for achieving success. In reality impatience is a bad habit which every one of us needs to break not only for people around us but for our own good.

Scientifically also it has been proved that impatience is harmful to our health. Impatience can lead to hypertension, obesity and can even make you broke due to rash judgments.

But one key thing is that impatience is not something you are born with, it is a behavior which you grow into yourself as a result of living in this chaotic world where everyone is rushing for somewhere. Long queues, traffic jams, bad customer service are all part of this imperfect world. Still every now and then I get irritated but I have come to terms with my daily dose of rage. I try not to get hyper on small petite things which are everyday routine and will not change with my getting angry on them.

We Want NOW!

Our generation wants everything and we want it now. We cannot wait and we want to get things quickly. We want our computer to be quick, we want the browser to load as soon as we hit enter, we want to watch movies with just a click as we are too impatient to drive to video store. We have become impatient to such an extent that we are now impatient about impatience.

I have spoken a lot above about how bad and harmful impatience is, but hang on a second. Is impatience always bad? Not necessarily, impatience can also be a sign for a healthy mind that doesn’t take crap. Let’s see recession for instance, things are definitely showing signs of improvement, but people are getting impatient to see some fast results. Now an impatience of this kind is good, it motivates you to work further quickly and make things better. Civil right leaders and abolitionists have been able to achieve something better for the society only because they were impatient about wrong things happening around them.

But all this is a different kind of impatience. Everyone gets impatient if things are delayed long enough. But it is only when we have a short fuse and get impatient quickly, our impatience becomes a cause of grief rather than relieving us from the problem.

Be impatient but don’t be imprudent. Impatience on small things will just cause stress, it is not going to achieve anything positive for you. Relax and have the capacity to digest small issues, it will take you a long way in life!