There are times when immediate action is necessary. Someone having a heart attack requires immediate attention. A hungry child requires immediate attention. But there are more instances where patience would go farther then immediate action in satisfying everyone's need. One example is the demand for jobs. I understand the trials a person faces when they have been out of work for a long while. And they should find jobs sooner rather than later. From everything I have heard and read though, economists say that jobs always lag behind a recovering economy. You can't change that. It is what it is. So now, people are condemning the President for being soft on jobs and making it an issue in the upcoming elections, when the jobs market is doing what it would normally do, no matter how much anyone would try to "fix it." Another example of this growing impatience is in the service sector. We all want our turn first and get rather impatient when we have to wait. On the other hand, when it finally is our turn, we want the person assisting us to give their undivided attention to us for as long as we demand it. If you do the math, it doesn't work that way.
Perhaps all this talk of impatience doesn't seem that important. But if you follow the growing trends of rage, rudeness and vigilanteism, you might see a connection. As we become more impatient, we tend to react violently to get what we want, much like a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum, only often with more serious consequences. But life doesn't have to be that way. We can begin to remember that everything doesn't happen in an instant. Government programs need time to work. Other people get to take their turns before us and we all have to share the resources we have equally. And sometimes, while we are waiting, we realize that we don't really need whatever we have most impatiently been waiting for, rather there is something better patiently waiting for us to see it.
