Patience with others and yourself
We live in a world of instant everything. If you want it Google will find it, Amazon will ship it, and your microwave will zap it. People text message each other constantly. Gone are our days of waiting to see someone the next day. Emails zip back and forth when the person you need to talk to is only 20 feet away. Technology moves faster and performs better all the time. Human beings, on the other hand, have existed for millenia and are hard-wired with primitive instincts. Humans do not get software updates at lightening speed. Humans are creatures of habit and routine. In fact, when I went to verify the science behind this Google pulled up that exact sentence I wrote from https://psychcentral.com. See, humans develop behaviors and habits during ages 0-18 (some say 20-22) that stay with them for their entire life. Unless the human commits significant time and effort to change, the habits remain on an endless loop even if they hurt us.
Have you ever wondered why you need to tell your mate for the 75th time to put wet towels in the hamper and not the floor? Or why does your roommate always leave the top deadbolt unlocked? Why does a college student decide to work on a paper one hour before it is due? These are all habits and routines. Now, I gave you examples that are mildly annoying. What about the mother that has to check on her adult daughter three times a day because she is having massive bouts of anxiety while the daughter is off at college? Or the child who was often neglected and ignored growing up so he figures out he will get his parent’s attention a different way by rebelling? Even worse, what about the child whose parent has a substance abuse problem and the child has to be the parent? They are going to develop habits and routines also, but they will be habits that are detrimental to their emotional well-being and even possibly put them in physical danger.
Couple all this with a culture of self-help and therapy we have a tug-of-war going on. We are comfortable with the familiar, even if we know it is detrimental to us, but we also hope and aspire to change ourselves. It reminds me of watching late-night television. A fast food chain commercial comes on and you see this triple burger dripping with cheese and topped with bacon followed by a Weight Watchers commercial. And this brings me to the issue of patience.
We have to be kind to others and ourselves. Most people are doing the best they can at any given moment. They have these habits and routines. Some are “good” and some are “bad”. If a person is working on something, they are not going to magically change after a few therapy sessions, or after reading a book, or watching a YouTube video. To really change a habit or behavior, it takes practice. You are trying not to curse, for example, and you slip and say M(&F#@. You are trying to diet and you see birthday cake at an event and grab the big corner slice with all the frosting. Of course you are going to slip up! You are a human being. You have the habit of cursing. You have the habit of making poor food choices. However, if you inhale deeply, take a step back, and put things in perspective, you can get back on track. Patience is the key. Patience with yourself; patience with the process of change; patience with others who are dealing with thier own issues we know nothing about, but may be quick to judge. People cannot change on a dime. That’s not natural to us. We are not computers who can get the instant software update that debugs the habits and routines that no longer work for the goals and life we seek. I can’t take a pill and instantly lose my co-dependency issues. I have to have patience with myself. I hope others will have patience in dealing with me.
Change is possible though as long as you keep making the effort. Over the last two weeks, I caught significant moments when I heard what came out of my mouth and realized how co-dependent it was so I can shift that habit. I will use the food analogy again. In my mind, I would love to be vegan. I believe I could benefit and it would be nice for my carbon footprint; however, I love meat. I also recently used to down Diet Coke so much so students would buy me 12-packs as gifts on teacher appreciation day or at graduation. I no longer drink Diet Coke. I no longer drink any sodas. I make progress with those little steps. I have patience. Eventually I will get there. As Lao Tzu said, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and oh what a journey we can have together if we have, in the words of Axel Rose, “just a little patience.”
