As a youngster, I was always taught the importance of the old truism "good things come to those who wait."
As I have likely mentioned before, my parents were big into teaching me about such things as delayed gratification, and they also taught me that if something was worth doing it was worth doing well... even if doing it well meant it would take longer than most other people would want it to.
My parents meant well, and taught me a lot of things that were pretty much useless, but among the lifelessons they passed along those two have stuck with me through most of my life.
When I moved from Europe to the USA for University, one of the first things I noticed was the importance of speed and quickness in everything people did, and often as a measure of someone's value, as a person. Well, perhaps not everything and everyone… but it so often seemed like quickness was valued over quality.
In some ways the emphasis on immediacy and speed made me feel a bit like a fish out of water. I noticed it in unusual ways at first. For example, I was invited to dinner at my "host family's" house and I noticed how quickly everybody ate and soon realized that everybody was waiting for me to finish what was on my plate. They actually thought I didn't like the food. Even as a 21 year old I did not eat particularly fast even if I was quite hungry.
I also struggled to adopt an attitude of aggressively taking the bull by the horns every time I encountered a life situation. Typically, I preferred to carefully evaluate what had happened, then ponder it for a bit, and then take what I felt was the best course of action.
I've considered whether it makes me lazy that I am not particularly interested in motion, for motion's sake when problem solving.
I remember driving with a friend during rush hour traffic in Houston TX and we reached a point on the Katy freeway where the traffic was pretty much at a standstill. Rather than just go with the flow, he insisted on getting off at the next exit and trying to get from point A to point B by driving through neighborhoods and surface streets; evidently he believed that as long as the car was moving we were making progress, even if we ended up getting far off course from where we were going.
So why am I even bringing this up?
Earlier I was having a memory of many years ago of being told that I would just be "left behind in life" unless I adopted faster and more assertive ways. From a simply functional perspective, I can't say that statement was entirely wrong, which led me pondering this whole idea of staying true to yourself — staying true to who you are.
I'll be the first to admit I'm a fairly slow person, and I am somebody who patiently waits for things, even in considerably frustrating situations. I don't work well if I am expected to just "jump into" starting to solve a problem as opposed to studying the problem and deciding on an educated best course of action. I'll wait, thank you!
I suppose the question of whether good things come to those who wait is ultimately an unsolvable problem… because it so substantially depends on what it is you're waiting for.
Have I missed opportunities because I wanted to take my time and understand what I was getting into, before getting into it? You bet!
But I don't really have regrets... because as often as not, my deliberateness has also saved me from a lot of meaningless frustrations and chaos.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!
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Created at 2023-05-01 23:53 PST
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