......patience

Yogis,

We recently launched an entire new line of products at work. My role is to price and add them to all of my contracts throughout eleven states. A lot to do. The sales rep’s job is to sell them which they can’t do until I have done my part. As you can imagine this can create tension. 

Someone sent an email to our group a couple of days ago asking when products would be added to their contracts. I and one other responded that ours wouldn’t be done until June 1 due to the variety of unique steps needed. There was an email response which I read and gave no further thought to.  My coworker though emailed asking if I was irritated. ‘No, I long ago decided not to be irritated’. I told him that I know I am doing the best I can and other people’s expectations can be what they are but I choose not to be affected.  He then asked if ‘in another incarnation’ would I have been irritated?  I said – perhaps. 

If I choose to be irritated, then I am irritated. Nothing in the situation changes except my mood.  I don’t want to work like that. It simply doesn’t feel good.

This ‘choosing’ comes with practice.

Fast forward to this weekend. All of the Comcast cable boxes had to be upgraded at the beach house so I dutifully stop to pick them up on my way down on Friday.  I spend the next hour climbing behind tvs, untangling cords, gathering dust bunnies and getting the new boxes in place. Proud of myself, it is now time to call in and get them activated! Not……..

For the next 2 ½ hours I am on with Comcast. Can you feel my pain? Eventually 2 work and 1 does not. The next morning another 2 hours of troubleshooting and then heading back to the store for a new box. Ok, this will do it! Not……..

I won’t bore you with all of the details, the googling, the 3 Comcast employees I got to know intimately or the number of times I had to repeat my 14 digit account number but suffice it to say that I now have an appointment set for a technician to come over Memorial Day weekend. Enough to send any rational person over the edge, but I chose not to go there. 

Patience is defined in the dictionary as ‘the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble or suffering without getting angry or upset’.  Or another begins with ‘the bearing of annoyance….’ Or ‘ waiting something out, or enduring’….. But I don’t agree with the wording of those. Accept, tolerate, endure all signify some type of inner struggle.  Fighting inside against that which is happening outside. If I am truly patient then it should be more of a letting go than a grinning and bearing. An inner peace with whatever is.

I observed myself throughout. When I would feel the inner tension begin to build I would breathe it away. When I began judging the person on the other end of the line I switched to viewing them as someone just like me, doing the best that they could. When I didn’t think I could call  back one more time without telling them ‘what I thought’, I paused awhile, had a snack and then dialed the number and once again entered my account number. 

Choosing takes practice. I credit my meditation for guiding me down this path…..of which I still have many miles to go. Baby steps.

Was this how I wanted to spend my weekend? No. But did I spend the whole time tense and irritated? No. Because then I would have been tense and irritated and nothing in the situation would have changed. I chose peace this time. It felt a whole lot better. 

Try it next time. I assure you that this life we lead will give you plenty of opportunities to practice J

Happy Mother’s (best role to teach patience) Day!
SARAH