I have an appointment. I leave my house on time (German time) to be there early enough so I won’t have to stress out. Out of nowhere there is this insane traffic and I am stuck in it. Initially (three minutes or so), I wait patiently. Then, I stick my head out of the window to see what is going on but I cannot see anything. I start thumb twiddling and I ask myself why the traffic is like this and how it is even possible. I change the music in the car and open and close the window one more time. I want to check if I can see why I am still stuck here and what happened but instead I observe two squirrels fighting over an acorn in the little park next to me. This makes me think about a study I read once on that squirrels only find two out of ten acorns they hid somewhere. “So apparently, this is how trees grow?”, I say out loud, no clue why. But how amazing is that? Thumb twiddling again.
And still stuck in traffic. The squirrels disappeared and they did not really make the situation that much better. Just a tiny bit because they are cute. I am looking at the clock in the car and get anxious. Anxious about the traffic and my tardiness (I am German, so this is a big one!) I am thinking about jumping out of the car, leaving the car behind and running to my appointment. At least I would do something. WHY ARE THE CARS NOT MOVING AT ALL? But keeping it real here, I wouldn’t make it on time at this point even if I would run as fast as The Six Million Dollar Man. This situation is just completely out of my control and there is nothing I can do or change about it.
All I can do right now is to sit here and be patient which I am not very good at. I have been thinking about patience a lot lately since I am freaking out every other day, curled up in fetal position crying [just kidding, mom!], about my thesis and the approach I will use. Friends and family are tired of me going on and on about this. But it seems that every time I finally should learn that it all takes time and I cannot rush things, I figure out a way to make me feel miserable and question everything. Usually, I want everything done instantly, right here right now and I make myself sick sometimes putting a lot of pressure upon myself.
So, I had a minor breakdown the other day at Starbucks and the only thing that changed my bad, miserable mood was a comment a friend made on a huge guy getting out of his teeny tiny car. I start to believe that patience is my new synonym for passivity aka laziness. To just leave certain things unresolved and to wait and let them linger around for as long as possible so they will eventually resolve themselves. I tried this new method for a while but it just does not work. I am not very good at procrastinating either since, for me, this is a terrible way to manage things. I get by without patience with certain things, but usually it is not very pleasant. I know that I need patience to accomplish things in a better, smarter way sometimes without getting too anxious about it all. These abrupt decisions that I sometimes make just because I am not patient and I don’t wait to see the whole picture are just weighing me down and make it all harder on myself.
I know that patience feels good and is required for my own sanity. It is just sometimes difficult to apply this knowledge. Damn you, thesis. I just want it all done and written. And find the best approach right here and now. I am on a good path however which is already a great realization toward the bigger picture I reckon.
I am still stuck in traffic but I stopped sticking my head out of the window to check what is going on. I also stopped asking why I am stuck here and how this all happened in the first place. Further, I stopped questioning if I will ever get out of this. I change the music to this, grab the book that is always in my purse for emergencies but then I just observe those two squirrels that came back to fight over another acorn. Isn’t it amazing that they hide all those acorns and they are pretty much the only animals that eat them? Like, nobody else cares about acorns. Why are they hiding so many? Why are they fighting over acorns? Also, all traffic jams will end at some point.
