One of my personal traits that I’m not particularly proud of is impatience. Yesterday when I went online to the DMV website to find out why I hadn’t received my car registration renewal in the mail, the web form wouldn’t take the information I entered, and I couldn’t find a number to call or make an appointment.
This shouldn’t be so difficult. ARGGGGH!

I can become impatient with people I love too. When I sent my husband to the store to get some coconut milk and he brought back coconut cream, I got really annoyed at him. He happily turned around and went back to the store, but I didn’t like waiting.
Can’t I trust him to manage a simple task? GRRRRRRRR!

And I can be just as impatient with myself as I can be with the world. When I’m working on a task, I often don’t think I am getting enough done. Even as I am writing this newsletter, I catch myself measuring my progress against an imaginary timeline.
I’ve been working on this for an hour, shouldn’t I be done by now? GROAN!

My impatience, like everyone’s impatience, is characterized by the assumption that things SHOULD be going better, smoother, more efficiently, than they are. It’s a standard of performance we expect that is not being met. Judging everything with this perfectionistic mindset, we contract, causing ourselves and others to suffer. We really shouldn’t be so impatient, should we? Sometimes I get so impatient with my impatience!

The antidote to impatience is hardly more judgments and criticism. What we need is compassion, understanding and acceptance. This meditation is specifically designed to help us stay present with our feelings of impatience. When we welcome, rather than resist this painful emotion, transformation happens.