patience

You are currently browsing articles tagged patience.

Like dracula, with the counting

January 19, 2008 in Personal by Ben | Comments closed

Today, my one goal is simple: to count to ten.

I need to count every time a child talks back, or pounces on a sibling, or grabs a dog’s tail and yanks.

I need to count when another driver cuts me off, or a box of cereal gets spilled on the floor, or when confronted with an obstacle that I’m not expecting after I’m already exhausted from climbing hurdles all day.

While counting, I will breathe. In. Out.

To make all this easier, in my head at least, I shall count like The Count..

Tags:

silly old yeller

September 20, 2007 in Kids, Personal by Ben | 5 comments

I was going along, minding my own business, and I read a post over at Interstellar Adventures that certainly made me stop and think.

No, I’m not like the guy in her post, but I do have a, shall we say, quick temper. This wasn’t always the case, but it is nowadays.

I get short tempered with the kids. I yell at cars that act like Idiots (or Maniacs, see Carlin, George). Sometimes I yell at the TV. I’m very quick to say “no” to a request, and also can be quick to judge a situation. And I wonder why my kids yell at each other?

One night (day?) recently, I heard my wife and kids around the kitchen table. I think they were working on homework, but they were also talking about something fun they wanted to do. I don’t remember exact details, but the gist of the conversation was that somebody had to go ask Dad about something, and they didn’t want to do it.

My. kids. Didn’t want to talk to me. They were afraid of what I might say. Or do.

Clearly, something’s gotta give. I can’t be perfect, but I can do better. I gotta have more patience, I gotta stop and think before I open my mouth. I gotta support my family more, instead of insisting on rigid compliance with how I expect things to go. Wish me luck.

Tags: , ,

lessons from our elders

March 23, 2007 in Personal by Ben | 1 comment

One of the lessons of history is that Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Will Durant

Okay, I’m officially too busy to write, so I’ll share some unrelated bits:

  • I weighed myself this morning and was shocked to see it 251.8. Perhaps my scale needs a new battery.
  • I ran four miles this morning (before weighing) and it was good.
  • I ate most of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s last night (‘The Gobfather‘) and it was very good. I’m proud to say that in spite of extreme stress this week I have not had a drop of alcohol.
  • That may change at any moment.
  • I had a lesson in patience this morning. I had a box to mail and stopped by the post office. The package drop was locked shut (some note about “excessive weight” on it) so I had to stand in line. I thouroughly enjoyed spending my allotted fifteen minutes watching the Archie-Bunker type have to deal with a string of international students, all of whom had fairly complicated transactions that netted the post office less than a dollar each in revenue. When I made it to the front, I smiled and said “this is ready to go, there wasn’t anywhere to put it,” (I had a prepaid label and it was sealed) and he told me next time just to bring it to the counter and not wait in line. What, and miss the show?
  • I want to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Does that make me a bad person?

Duty calls. Leave a comment and tell me what to write about.

Tags: ,