Being Patient

The computer in my office is from, at best, 1998. It's slow. It can't open images. A PDF takes around 17 minutes to open. As you might imagine, this drives me up the bloody wall. In 2013 patience is hard to come by.

Everything goes at super speed. Remember the days of dial up internet? Heaven forbid we mention LBTI (life before the internet.) But even broadband wasn't quick enough, now we need it to be 'super-fast.' We run for the bus, rush to the next meeting, think the world has ended when we lose 3G and hurry through life, barely stopping to take breath.

But on a recent break to rural Devon I was forced into thinking about patience. Staying a hut, in a field, it can't help but come to mind.

Want a cup of tea? No problem. That'll just be an hour to get the fire going and boil some water. Dinner? Give it two. Need the loo? Just give yourself enough time to wind up the torch and get down the track.

The Boyfriend tending the kettle

It's a shock at first. Time may not wait for any man, but modern man certainly doesn't wait around either. Every minute not going at super-fast speed is a minute wasted.

And then you begin to get used to a slower pace of doing things. The sound of the owls outside as you wait for the kettle to boil. The warmth of the fire. The chorus of the thousand crickets in the grass outside.

And the waiting becomes part of the task itself. An enjoyable part too.

But now we're home, and the hut and her fire is behind us. The kettle boils in under 30 seconds and light is but a switch away.

But luckily for me the PDFs still won't load, and so I'm going to use that time to daydream, doodle, or simply write this blog post. I'm going to slow down and give being patient a bash.