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So much of what we want is available now. You can get next day delivery and even same day delivery. You can go to the shop and pick up what you want straight off the shelf. You can fill yourself up on immediate gratification from food, shopping, pleasure, entertainment, social media and more.
This modern world and all its comfort enables us to have so much of what we want, exactly when we want it, which is usually: right now. There’s very little waiting and very little effort required. That does make me reflect on how truly blessed we are.
But equally, this blessing can be our greatest downfall.
Over time, this expectation of speed and ease can start to drip into all areas of our lives. Eventually, it’s not just our Amazon deliveries that we want fast, but also:
- Our job and career
- Our money and wealth
- Our business and success
- Our relationship and family
- Our health and longevity
- Our happiness and fulfillment
- Our personal growth and transformation
We don’t want to do 50 applications and 4 rounds of interviews.
We don’t want to spend months getting to know someone intimately.
We don’t want to strive for years just to break even in our business.
We want it now. And ideally, with little effort. Just like our Amazon delivery.
And so: challenges, effort, waiting – these start to feel like painful thorns in our side. Even though they are very normal and unavoidable parts life.
Getting things immediately is not natural
Most things in the natural world are not so quick.
Most things require traction and time to gain momentum and manifest.
Most things require at least a little patience.
It can take up to 5 years before an apple tree bears fruit.
It takes 9 months to develop a human baby in the womb.
It can take over a 1 billion years for most natural diamonds to develop. A billion!
‘I want it now’ is… nice but perhaps a little misguided? A little delusional? A little unwise in the grand scheme of things?
And I say this knowing full well that I suffer from this predicament too! I am sometimes very impatient.
For me, it helps to remember the old days
I grew up pre-internet which provides me with a bit of a reality check, a reference point and some grounding when my desire for all things to come now, rears its impatient little head.
I know how it feels to digest a book over months rather than speed-listening to it in 8 hours on Audible. The former was a much more enriching experience for me.
I also know how it feels to spend months on a university project and wait weeks for the results, compared to spending a few minutes posting on social media and expecting immediate likes and shares. The former was much more fulfilling and nourishing.
My pre-internet experiences remind me that I was able to remain pretty calm and patient on the way to what I wanted. I let it unfold in it’s own time. And, I enjoyed putting in the deep work required to get there, even though it could be painful.
I have lived that way and I’d love to live that way again. I’d love to unplug myself from the matrix of impatience and immediate gratification.
Because, here’s the biggest cost associated with an “I want it now” mentality:
It’s that those words are often followed by “and if I’m not getting it, something must be wrong”.
If something is taking time, it’s slow, it’s failing, we start to think it’s wrong or, or we are wrong, we are failing, we are falling behind.
We then get upset and frustrated, beat up on ourselves and compare ourselves unfavourabley to others who appear to be moving more quickly.
We might even give up on what we want and leave it all together.
And that’s the biggest cost, the biggest risk, the biggest shame: giving up too soon.
So many dreams and creations will never manifest on this earth because they didn’t come as fast as we wanted and so we gave up. We didn’t realise that perhaps they just needed more effort, patience and time.
So, I’m learning to wait again
I’m learning to slow everything down. To have patience in the big things and the small things. From wanting something delivered more quickly to wanting my biggest dreams to hurry up and get here… I’m reaching for more patience across the board.
I’d like to be more accepting of the very natural, gradual, unfolding of life – just as I was in the pre-internet days. In fact, I marveled in it. I found it so beautiful.
I’d like to enjoy the odd immediate manifestation – they do happen, I’ve had them – but remain in the wisdom that growth spurts are just that, they are spurts. They tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
I choose quality over quantity, depth over ease and substance over speed. I know that’s not the way the world is going or conditioning us to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s not right.
Immediate gratification is not a virtue. In fact I think it’s harmed us in many ways. It’s cheapened us and weakened us. It’s delighted our senses but it’s sapped our strength and our spirits.
So remember, like a delicious stew that’s been simmering for time, or an aged and special fine wine, many good things just take time. And your life is not going to be delivered by Amazon Prime!
So sit back, slow down, even relax a little if you can. Learn to savour each moment instead of racing to the next. Stop assuming that slow means wrong. Sometimes slow is sacred. Sometimes slow is preparation.
Slowness is not your enemy. But perhaps impatience is.
