A friend of mine sent me this quote on impatience with a side note that said, “This is the hardest one for me to get.” I thought she was sending it to me because she knew it was the hardest one for me to get.

It’s easy to forget that we don’t live in isolation and so our desired timing for what is to happen, does not always match up with the universe’s plan. Everything we do has an effect on our surroundings and everyone in them. Everything in our environment affects us as well. Like a ripple of water that keeps expanding, changing everything in its path, our cause-and-effect world plays with us. We don’t make the rules; it does.

I’ve always chosen to live in places where people think they have coined the phrase “blank time” – “Boulder time,” “Santa Fe time,” now “Maui time.” In essence, this means not-by-the-timekeeper’s clock. Everything happens, when it happens. This may be the universe’s way of telling me to slow down and go with the flow. I know I’m not the only one who could use a reminder.

Our fast-paced society, even on Maui, where I now live, can have us in a spin. There was a time when if we called someone and they weren’t home, we’d try back later. Now, there’s, voicemail, cell phones texts, and social media venues for a more immediate connection. Our impatience is fed and we’re getting use to the pace. Many of us don’t even take the time to load a CD into a player. We get a more immediate response from our IPHONES, IPAD, Kindle, etc.. The days of sitting down to a card or board game are becoming obsolete. Expectation of immediate gratification has become our “mind/body” diet of choice.

Learning to slow down and smell the roses along the way, actually taking our eyes off the screen of one of our devices long enough to take in the natural beauty that’s right in front of us now takes discipline. Likewise, having the patience to bask in universal time is a requirement for turning the tide on impatience. I loved the line from the film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – “Everything works out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s just not the end.”