The Virtue of Patience

My iPhone was taking forever to sync. iTunes was copying some audio books from the Mac in the other room, wirelessly and slowly. Google Maps on Safari stubbornly refused to load the map showing me the location of the theatre where I was meant to pick my daughter up from. Time was running out. I cancelled the sync operation, leaving the media to copy. Too late now, I wanted it for the trip.

I wanted it for the trip because I wanted to make some changes in my life and this particular piece of audio would have helped.

I picked up the Streetcar. Late. The diesel level was exactly one quarter. When you return a Streetcar, one of the club rules is that you return it with at least a quarter of a tank. I’d had a good run. When I most needed that run to continue, it didn’t. I’d have to fill up. Again, pushed for time. I didn’t. I winged it.

The phone rang. The expensive Apple Bluetooth adaptor failed to pick up the call. I parked. Tried to make a call, the iPhone stubbornly refused to connect. I reset the Bluetooth. No matter what I tried, it refused to connect. I drove off. I got a call. No bluetooth. I pulled over. The call ended. A text message from the person calling said “I don’t know how to answer my phone’. Which meant I couldn’t call back. I drove off. I got called again. No bluetooth. I pulled over again. Tried to call again. O2/iPhone will not make a call. Call failed. Call failed.

It was at this point that I lost it. I started swearing. Loudly. Angrily. Pointlessly.

I looked in the rearview mirror at a traffic light near Kingsway. Some young blonde was laughing away to herself, in her Mini, the one she bought despite being half my age, flicking her hair in contempt at my technological impotence (or so I led myself to believe). Oh no. Hang on, she’s not laughing at me. She’s got a working bluetooth. I drove off down Kingsway and started to laugh at myself.

All the other girls in my daughter’s class had gone home by themselves. The only person who had put all this time pressure on himself was me. My daughter is a great girl. Well behaved, safe (and you can read that in its modern sense too if you prefer) and well mannered.

I didn’t have to book a Streetcar. I didn’t have to make calls. I didn’t have to get my bluetooth working. I didn’t have to find my daughter outside a West End theatre, driving through the night-time London traffic with drunken pedestrians and even more drunk drivers. I could have trusted her to come home with some friends for company. She was the only one outside the theatre with a teacher when I arrived. She could have been on her way and I could have been less stressed.

Then again, having done that, and having realised that all the stress was created by nobody but me, I learned the value and the virtue of patience. Once you’ve made a decision, own it, deal with it, smile through it.

Tagged as: patience