Day Eight

Rule 8

“Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to look at the end of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.”

Oh, I do love this one. Patience...a loaded word if there ever was one. I can be patient when I want, but sometimes it's downright painful. I've never liked the attitude that patience means to just accept whatever is happening to you and blindly go along. I believe that God helps those who help themselves, and if you still don't see results, then patience needs to kick in that the next step will become clear soon enough. The fact that this rule separates patience from passivity makes me very happy. It encourages insight, trying to see an end result and analyze an outcome. Yes, analyze, you read it right. Sometimes what destiny has in store is not that surprising, it's what your heart already knows is going to happen, but your mind takes some time to catch up. If you can understand where things are headed, it comes into focus. I'm not sure I am explaining this correctly, but it's what I've witnessed in my own life. When no answers are clear, and you can't decide what you should do, sometimes the smart thing is to just wait. 

That said, there are some instances when I simply cannot endure patiently. One is on the road. Oh. Good. Heavens. I have the worst road rage imaginable, but not the kind that makes me drive aggressively, just the kind that makes me swear. It is not uncommon for me to be talking (read: yelling) to myself inside my car while driving (read: trying to stay alive). Driving in Lahore is not for the faint-hearted, as I found out since we moved here. It's utterly terrifying, and the reckless driving around me every single day really angers me because those people have no regard for person or property - not their own, not anyone else's. I just need to get from point A to point B in one piece, keep my babies safe, and I am not interested in racing / egos / guys who like to purposely infuriate me and then laugh at me just because I'm a woman (whyyyyyyy is it so amusing, apeman??). But when you cut me off without an indicator and almost run into me, then you can be sure this mother is cussing you out like a sailor alone in her car to offset the mini heart attack she's just had. 

When the kids are in the car, I have to be more restrained. "Why pick a lane? Oooobviously your father owns the road!" Truly, why pick a lane when you can have two? Especially while you're talking on your cellphone, am I right? Slow clap for you, my friend, slooooow clap. 

I can do all the anger management I want in these 40 days, but the day I can kick my road rage, I'll have attained Buddha-level calm. In other words, ain't happening. And I'm not sure I really want to. It's my survival tactic on the road, my stress release in what is entirely defensive driving. Nothing like a good expletive or five to calm the poor nerves. At least until I move to a city where the driving is hopefully calmer, and I can go back to singing along to NSync's "Bye Bye Bye" (wait, what? I never did that, that was someone else, pfft!).