I’m pretty sure I have mentioned this before.
And I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that I view it as kind of a character flaw in myself.
But here it is:
My patience is severely tested when someone is taking a reallllllly long time to tell me something super boring.
(such as, the entire plot of a movie.)
The boringness.
The length of time.
The fact that the conversation is not a conversation at all, but is rather the other person talking and me just listening.
All of it really tests my patience.
And I know (I know, I know) that I should be unselfish and kindly listen, because a listening ear serves the other person.
And I do try really hard to kindly listen in these types of situations.
But I cannot lie; it does test my patience. Which is probably good for me because I think patience grows with practice.
Uh, the entirety of motherhood? Just kidding. Specifically, when I get home from work. After spending eight hours being patient with other people’s children, my own test my patience even more when they all want to talk at once/run around/scream/ask for dinner and otherwise behave the same way they do the other five nights of the week. It’s just much harder to take on work nights.
When I’m tired at the end of a long work day working with other people’s children and then I have to help my children with complicated homework assignments that they get frustrated with. I have to remind myself to do it before I get tired-it else I’m too grumpy!
Ugh, yes. Homework on work nights is THE WORST.
I’m totally with you on the long, boring stories. It’s not so bad if I can be doing something while the story is going on–like unloading the dishwasher while my husband tells me a long, winding joke. But having to give my full attention and pretend to be fascinated? Long, inward sigh.
Listening to my husband talk about golf. What is worse is that my husband is pretty close to a saint, even after 37 years of being married to me. He is unfailingly kind, supportive and nursed me through not one but two catastrophic illnesses with never a word of complaint. So why can’t I listen to him analyze his latest game without wanting to fall to the floor in a dead faint just to make him stop? He knows it, though, so he’ll say, “I want you to pretend to be listening for the next 15 minutes, while I talk about golf.” So I do and I also watch the clock and let him know when his 15 minutes is over. He does the same thing when I start talking about compost or my vegetable garden, because he will build anything I want for the garden and admire my flowers but he does not want to hear about layering the compost or hilling up the leeks. (Sometimes when he is blathering on about a birdie, whatever that is, I remind myself that when he had cancer I prayed that he would live, and told God I would never complain again even if all he ever talked about for the rest of his life was golf. That helps.)
This is awesome. (:
Listening to someone who is telling something interesting enough, but they tell it by stopping, backtracking, questioning him or herself…
Watching a child do something in 15 minutes that I could do in one minute, but they need to learn how to do it.
Waiting on hold for “The next available operator,” especially when it’s an urgent call or a call to contest an error of some kind. It takes all I have to be pleasant when someone finally comes on the phone.
Kids.
I am OK with telling my own kids to go occupy their own time, but when I can’t do that for whatever reason, other people’s kids or whatnot, oh my word.
People at church laugh because I told them a decade ago I’d be glad to help with VBS as long as I didn’t have to deal with kids. Still true. True every day.
Traffic.
I lose my patience most often with my almost 8 year old son. Specifically when I ask him to complete a task nicely three times and he doesn’t follow directions. Then I yell at the top of my lungs and he does it right away. Drives me nuts and I know it is my fault.
I agree about anyone relating anything in a long boring monotone way. To this day I can’t sit and talk on the phone about stuff for long periods of time. I also don’t like to browse when I’m shopping. Thank you for letting me know there are other women like me. I started to believe there was “something” wrong with me.