Patience

I'm typing this post from my iPhone. I've never written a post from a cell phone before, so if you're reading this, I guess I made it work ok.

Why am I typing this with my thumbs instead of with all of my fingers on a keyboard? Well, my MacBook died. I guess I did something to it (who knows what) that corrupted part of the hard drive. Oh joy. Thankfully, it is fixable and will come back soon.

...Which brings me to my topic. I think I have discovered my biggest weakness, and it isn't hand-eye coordination (of which I don't have much, but that's a different story).

Patience.

Another blog post confession: I am really terrible at being patient. I always want things to work out just so, in the perfect-picture-I-imagine-in-my-head way. Anything less leaves me very frustrated.

Mistakes? Curve balls? The unexpected? They don't belong in the picture!

I have had many people say to me over the years, "Brooke, you're such a great student!" I assume this is because I do my work well and get it done on time.

Wait. I don't get my work done on time. I get my work done WAY ahead of time. Why? I have no patience for deadlines. I have no patience to let life come in its own timeline. Nope, it all needs to get done ASAP!!

I have this annoying voice in my head. This voice is very, very impatient (and often, quite rude). I explain it to people this way. Think of a voice in your mind. It is told you have a job to do by such-and-such a date. But, instead of hearing the deadline as the amount of time you have to get something done, it starts ticking an inner voice time bomb alarm. From day 1, the brain starts stirring with thoughts. By a month out from the project/event, the voice starts pushing alarm buttons ("You really should start working on that; it will be here before you know it!!")

By 2 weeks away, the voice is starting to slam a few guilt trip/panic buttons ("What are you doing?!?! You should be done by now!!").

By 1 week away, the voice starts screaming: "OH MY GOSH, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE LAST WEEK!!!"

If you had an inner mind gremlin doing this to you, wouldn't you want to get your stuff done early, too? Thought so.

I am taking a graduate research class this semester, and our big project is to research a topic in our field, write a prospectus (basically, a dissertation proposal) with a 30 source annotated bibliography, and give a 15 minute oral presentation from a separate typed script. My teacher has scheduled various deadlines to get all the students in the class done by the end of the semester. The first deadline was to choose a topic. I got that done and now am on phase 2: completing a proposal for the prospectus (2-3 typed pages, and a 20 source bibliography.

Two weeks out, my inner voice started yelling at me, so I went to the library to nail down some sources. I had a good list of 17 sources typed into a Word document. I found a treatise written by my main "character," Theobald Boehm, and read some of Nancy Toff's "The Flute Book." Within these two sources, I found enough information for a basic premise to prove my point.

I worked ahead on my homework so that, starting this past Wednesday, one week away from the deadline (inner voice says, "AAAHHHHHHH!!"), I could check out my sources and get my bibliography converted to Chicago style format. I turned my computer on, and the screen started getting all jumpy. After a couple manual restarts, I realized it wasn't coming back to life very easily. After 3 hours of TLC, all my boyfriend could get it to do was show a screen saying it couldn't connect to its hard drive.

Inner voice hit all panic buttons.

:&;&3&;@;;!2!!!!!!!!!

I took the computer to the shop, and just found out today it is fixable! And, I will get it back in time to work on my paper over the weekend. Phew! 

Do I like the fact that I have 5 days to finish my project? Not at all. But now, I can just wait for my computer to come back.

...which leads to my point about patience. This roadblock seems like God's way of showing me that I can accept a deadline, meet it ON TIME (not in advance), and be perfectly fine.

I noticed this patience theme again while practicing with my pianist. I was playing a page of black 32nd and 64th notes. I realized the piano part made it easier, that brilliant Franz Schubert built in some give and take between the flute part and the piano part that gave me room to breathe and relax. The impatient panic voice tried coming back, telling me that surely, I needed to work harder! "You need to get done faster!" 

I didn't listen, and guess what? I enjoyed my music far more.

I went back to the practice room, and my impatient inner voice started yelling at me about how my concerto isn't sticking in my memory. I ended up getting mentally overwhelmed and went home.

Apart from the practice room, and multiple thumbs-deep into typing this blog post, I realize that all of these perceived problems stem from my lack of patience. I am running through the field of roses pretty fast, but I haven't stopped to enjoy the smell of any of them. After briefly feeling what music should feel like when playing it, I want to smell them. 

Shut up, inner impatient voice.