Kay:
Hey, hey, Questers! Welcome back! It’s Tuesday, November 3rd and this is episode 217. We have such a cool quote for you today right from Joyce Meyer and she says, “Patience is not simply the ability to wait, it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.”
Shi:
Now we very intentionally chose this quest for this day, because unless you’re living under a rock here in the US – it is Election Day. I saw a funny meme on Reddit earlier that was one girl playing the tuba and another girl with her head fully inside the tuba and the girl playing the tuba had the words on her, “Make sure you vote,” and then the girl whose head was inside the tuba was, “Everyone outside of the US.” So everyone in the world is hearing the cries for voting here in the US and we all want it to end today. Today is Election Day and there’s that expectation that by tonight we know. Now we could know tonight, but almost every expert is telling us that it is going to take some time to get the results of this election so we thought why not bring forward a quote that reflects the best way to handle this upcoming waiting period…
Kay:
Now, as of this point, there are 100,000 ballots that have been submitted early for the election or 100 million ballots, (which have been submitted for the election), which is double the turnout that we saw in 2016, almost double. And the historic election numbers, I think are just underscoring the impatience that is underlining the emotional state of our country.
Shi:
Yes, the emotional state indeed, but no matter where you are in the world or when you’re listening to this, if it’s after the fact, this quote is such a goody. When we read it out loud both of us went, “Ooh.”
Kay:
“Ooh, so good.”
Shi:
“Gosh, that’s good,” because it’s not just about having patience and equating that word to meaning “waited out” because there are different levels and different dimensions to that and really cultivating a true, integrity filled patience means that we behave in a way we’re proud of while we wait. And that difference right there makes ALL the difference.
Kay:
Right! Well, you can say that you’re a patient person, but be thrashing along the way and so understanding that the behavior in the meantime, (meaning that you have some form of decorum and peace in the midst of that waiting and your control over that), is really what she’s speaking to here. We had an interview just today for our Stand For It series, which – if you haven’t tuned into it yet – please do! We have the social research and justice studies school from the University of Nevada, Reno lending us their professors for a beautiful, quick series weekly on what they stand for and what their research stands for. But today we had an interview with Professor Mariah Evans and she said to us in kind of a casual conversation beforehand, she said, “Waiting gets easier.”
Shi:
She did. And I appreciated that! She said, “As you get older patience gets easier, waiting gets easier,” and we appreciated that. But I don’t think it gets easier without practice or without intentionality. If we know everything you want is uphill, and if we also know we want better patience, you’ve got to actively work up towards that hill. So finding the depth and the understanding in this difference between patience and simply just “waiting” is helpful to bring to our parenting. It’s helpful to bring to our own personal perspectives and it’s
helpful to bring into our professional settings as well!
Kay:
One of the things that Shila and I like to do when we start to feel impatience creeping up into our hearts and souls, is we like to think about how long it’s taken for us to really get into what we like to call this “next phase” of our professional journey. So it’s really been over the last five and a half years that Shila and I have been in this phase, (of course there may have been some sub phases within that!), but we look at all that has transpired in the last five years and it’s a LOT. From 2015 to 2020, oh my goodness – it would take us all day long to tell you the entire story in the kind of detail that you would need! And if you look at that span of time, that was five years and that was ONLY five years. So, oftentimes, when we look at all that can transpire in the course of five years, maybe take a look at the last five years of your life and just think how long would it take you to tell that story to somebody in great detail, and then understand that if you have to wait an extra week, or you have to wait an extra month, or you have to wait an extra year, is that really (in the relative moments of your life) going to matter in a significant amount of time?
Shi:
I love that you brought that perspective forward because patience is easy in retrospect. It’s easy to look back and say, “Hey, well, five years blah, blah, blah, but I got the outcome I wanted.” But five years times 365 days means we’re talking thousands of days, tens of thousands of hours, and those are the moments in our life that can be hard. Maybe you’re like me and being patient for something to unfold over a year or two isn’t too hard, but being patient to get through a presentation or being patient in, (I even hate to say it!), but getting to the end of Saturday or Sunday can be a struggle for me! Sometimes by three o’clock on the weekend, I’m like, “I am ready to be productive.” And I have to be patient and be present to where I am and what I’m doing. So this quote helps us do that! And, to remind you, the quote for today from Joyce Meyer is, “Patience is not simply the ability to wait, it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.”
Kay:
All righty, gang! That means today’s quest is a patience quest. Time to put on that patience cap – literally – we want you to literally put on a hat today and remind yourself that you’re in control of everything under that hat and nothing more…So be patient in the process! Are you ready?
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!
