waiting sucks

Hi friends.

I recently discovered I have a problem with being patient. I have been waiting on the outcome of a potentially-life altering decision for weeks, and while I received some information to ease my mind last week, I am still waiting for the final verdict. It's not easy, waiting, contrary to what people like Nelson Mandela would have you believe.

But Heather, you say, I've been waiting for you to update this blog for almost two months!

Touché, faithful reader, but lo - you have been rewarded! Because isn't that what being patient is supposed to be all about? The big payoff? "Good things come to those who wait" and all that?

I tried looking up some resources online that would help me with the actual agony of waiting. Turns out a lot of famous old people had already confronted the challenge of being patient! I compiled their advice into one handy column. So without further ado, I proudly present:

PATIENCE THROUGH THE AGES!

Patience is the greatest of all virtues. - Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)

Wow. Really going back here.

Patience is the greatest? Well while you're busy being a cheerleader for patience, what about a little virtue I like to call "honesty"? Or "respectability"? And perhaps my personal favorite, "prudence"? Besides that, your little quotable does nothing to help me wait. Moving right along...

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind. - Leonardo da Vinci, Italian engineer, painter, & sculptor (1452 - 1519)

Uh, sure Leo, being patient is just like wearing clothes. For being the archetype for the "Renaissance Man" or "Universal Genius" that everyone says you are, I would have hoped for a little more from the likes of you.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. - Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

Helen, I want to like you, and the whole overcoming adversity against all odds thing? Brilliant. But do you have to be such a downer? Think about the upside: if there were only joy in the world, then perhaps we wouldn't need to be brave or patient. Circular reasoning. Next.

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience. - Stanislaw J. Lec (1909 - 1966)

1. Who are you?

2. Patience to have patience? Another logic-defying chicken-and-egg scenario which helps me none.

3. Nice headshot tho.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end. - Margaret Thatcher (1925 - )

Now this is what I'm talking about! Finally, somebody who knows what's up. I'm with you Maggie, you wily old bird.

So until the outcome of my potentially life-altering event shakes out, you and I will be waiting here with bated breath. Or maybe just me. Either way, hopefully I will be able to update you in the coming days on the status of My Entire Life.