Sacred Plans

  I awoke this morning with whimsical prosaic verse spinning in my head. Eloquent and cohesive sentences sparkled and wove a beautiful tapestry of clarity and simplicity; we are shaped to believe in our sacred plans; the facet of imagination manifest itself in predicting a possible world in the making; if we have a detailed plan, and believe in them.  If we can convince ourselves of the reliability of those beliefs, all manner of delights can be delivered to our wanting desires. It is of little consequence if we’re never brought to task to prove our reasoning; what matters is our passionate commitment to our plan.  That notion got me to thinking about what would be the most profound quality of education currently absent in current school curriculum? Not math; nor geography; not even political economy, or cultural diversity. I would venture a singularity that affects every perspective ever held, or ever will be: patience.

  I think about my own processes and how impatience affected not just the outcome of my many plans, but how I felt over pursuing or even obtaining the results I felt I deserved.  What I most often notice in the conflicting world around me, is a pervasive intolerance; which is of course, the absence of patience.  Sure, there are external and internal contributors vying to convince us to be rigid and exacting; the sense of lack and the adoption of haste are indicators that allowance and acceptance have lost value so a grasping panic intercedes and interferes with ability to allow events to unfold as they should. 

The frantic need to control is born on the fear of loss.

  All of which comes from failure to cultivate patience.  Oddly we don’t have to rationalize other dispositions that consume the person, but patience seems often under suspicion of being flawed in concept or execution.   

   Nature teaches us every day the folly of anxious and impertinent behavior, but still we refuse to see the consequences of shortcuts towards our goals.

  Learning our numbers and how to tell time is of course useful in so many ways, but I’d suggest let us start at the bedrock if we are going to lay a good foundation.  Teach patience. Obviously it is not as succinct and contained as other useful life skills, but it is a valuable tool to hone and develop over the years when tackling the really complex concepts requiring diligence and confidence in personal ability in order to solve our really interesting obstacles to living well.

Just a thought