Comments:

vikkitikkitavi
2007-08-06 13:04:42
You know, it was watching a friend of mine deal pretty unsuccessfully with her anger that cured me of a lot of my needless impatience. She was the embodiment of New Yorker impatience, always complaining about the wait in the line, and how this thing or that should have come to our table faster, or how incompetent various service people were at doing what she wanted. It annoyed the shit out of me, partly because I somewhat recognized my own behavior, but also because it made the endurance of inconveniences suck even worse than they would have normally. One day, when we were standing in line at the grocery store, she started going off about how long it was taking. I tried to start a conversation, but she would not be moved off topic. Finally I said "Do we have somewhere we need to be?" She said no. I said "Then we might as well be here doing this together, as being somewhere else." She said, "I don't know how you can be so calm, when we've been standing in line for twenty minutes to buy two things." I said, "I can't change how long it is taking. Here we are. Why not try to have a good time, if we can?" I don't know if it made an impact on her, but it sure did on me. But I guess I'm just telling a different version of the old Serenity Prayer, eh?
-------------------------------

add your comment:

back to the entry - Diaryland