Impatience

This will likely be the first of many posts on this subject. I am trying to cultivate more patience (I seem to have been endowed with a very short supply), but even when I am making what feels like extreme efforts to be patient, I often seem to lose patience long before others do.

Except this morning, when I had an experience that showed that I have actually been able to grow a teeny weeny patience plant in my emotional and spiritual garden.

The scene: I was stopped at the intersection of Mount Auburn Street and Aberdeen Avenue, which has a large sign indicating "Left Turn on Left Arrow Only". I was in my car, patiently waiting for the green arrow that was pointing straight ahead to be joined by the green arrow pointing to the left. A car behind me started to honk, as if I were in the way. Well, I guess I was, but I was also respecting the law. I wished I had a sign that I could project onto my rear windshield that pointed to the words, "Left Turn on Left Arrow Only". Lacking such a sign, and lacking any desire to otherwise confront these people, I sat there and waited while listening to a tape about going with the flow (in this particular case I aligned with the "flow" of the traffic law and decided to wait for the light to change) .

The person behind me quickly ran out of patience, and swerved around and in front of me to make the turn. This driver was followed by two others, who also rather angrily swerved around and in front of me. Perhaps they "saved" 20 seconds out of their day, if that, by taking matters into their own hands. Interestingly, I often find myself the first in line when stopped at that light, and this is the first time that other cars passed me, giving me the opportunity to observe, at least with this particular situation, that my patience plant has established some roots.

Off to yoga, where I will water it some more.