🫸 Patience, My Love

Patience — ugh! Where's the fun in that?

As someone almost always in go-mode, I'll admit that patience isn't my favorite virtue. But I'm learning, through unique experiences, how valuable it is in steadying myself and staying balanced.https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/49dc6dad-3df0-4bfd-942f-7c1b1f048aa2 Here's hoping I don't end up in the fires of Mount Doom 🤷‍♂️

If I can apply the right type of patience to the right situations, I'll have more focus and energy for the things that I should be fully present in. The things I should be spending my limited time on.

These reflections start with a pissed off neighbor.

Cranky Notes

A few weeks ago, I found this note on my windshield:

FYI - I CAN'T PARK ANY CLOSER TO THE FUCKING WALL…TRY TO GIVE ME SOME SPACE TO GET IN NEXT TIME

There's a people pleaser / peacemaker somewhere in me (yeah yeah, go ahead and run your enneagram analysis), so my initial reaction was to assume I was in the wrong.

But, was I? The rational side of my brain kicked in, looking at the distance between my car and my neighbors, both squeezed into our tight garage spaces with limited turn radius access.

I'll admit that I considered drafting a rather sarcastic response of my own:

Hi, neighbor! Great to meet you. Thank you so much for your instructive, lively note. I might have thought you were joking had you not written in caps! Hah! Anyway, I thought I was giving you as much space as possible, but I'll do literally everything in my power to squeeze out another inch for you next time I pull in. Tata for now!

But, I didn't. I didn't do anything, actually. And while that was probably somewhat about conflict avoidance, it also gave me some intentional space to reflect on the situation and what would lead to the best outcome.

Military Doctrine on Action and Patience

When there is a challenge or crisis, I tend to run towards it. It's actually one of the things that, from a productivity standpoint, can get me into trouble. It doesn't take much for me to set aside what I'm "supposed" to be doing, to focus on something new, which appears to be or is actually urgent.

Military enlistment is probably to blame, at least to an extent. Marines live by a doctrine called "bias for action," which may explain why so many of us end up with poorly thought out tattoos — too much action.

Here's one description I'm particularly fond of, as it ties the definition to a broader analysis of character and will.

The essential thing is action. Action has three stages: the decision born of thought, the order or preparation for execution, and the execution itself. All three stages are governed by will. The will is rooted in character, and for the man of action, character is of more critical importance than intellect. Intellect without will is worthless, will without intellect is dangerous.
- Hans von Seeckt, Thoughts of a Soldier

I've often viewed this bias for action as appropriately counterbalanced with another key military doctrine: tactical patience, which "requires leaders to shape the situation to make sure that resources can be committed at the appropriate time."

I like this analysis from Andrew Goehrin:

In order to exercise tactical patience, one must allow the situation at hand to develop before committing to a particular course of action.

Doctrine Applied

Applied to the lovely note I found on my windshield, a bias for action may have looked like quickly writing out a response. Importantly, even there, it wouldn't just be writing the first thing that comes to my head. The decision must be "born of thought."

And in that thought lies the tactical patience, where I could gather more information about the situation so that I could act at the right time.

I pondered and walked away. I assumed my neighbor was having a bad day and that it wouldn't be too long before we would actually connect in person when we pulled in cars at the same time. I went on with my life. I was even taking care to try and pull in a bit closer to my side of the line to give him more space. Some may view that as capitulation, but to me it seemed right.

Then, a couple weeks after the initial note, completely unprompted, I found this note on my windshield:

HEY THERE…I JUST WANT TO APOLOGIZE FOR MY SHITTY LAST NOTE. DO YOU PREFER WHITE OR RED WINE? I THINK WE ARE QUASI-NEIGHBORS. I'M IN [APT NUMBER]. I'D LIKE TO MAKE UP FOR MY LAST COMMENTS. -[NAME]

Quite a pleasant turn of events, eh?

Under a different approach, I would have let that first note consume me. Maybe I would have actually written out and shared my snarky note. Or maybe I'd have done nothing but just let it fester, remaining concerned about this person I'll have to be parking my car next to for the foreseeable future.

But I took the time and was able to find some relative calm in the situation. I trusted that it would work itself out, even if I couldn't point to specific evidence as to why that would be the case. Call it a feeling. A hunch. A belief.

The second note also revealed something interesting. The caps lock writing in the first note wasn't a function of anger. It just appears to be my neighbor's writing style. There's no way I could have known that from just the first note, where the script seemed to match the tone. Though I suppose it's possible that he was also shouting his apology, a possibility I enjoy imagining.

Meta Analysis of Patient Action

With apologies to the true doctrinal experts, I'm going to coin this "patient action."

As I often do with these blogs. I'm sharing something here as I'm currently thinking about and working through it. I'm deliberately creating an open cognitive loop where I will be thinking about this concept as I go through my day-to-day life, trying to identify places where I need to exercise some patience before taking action.

As a reminder, "loops" refer to those cognitive functions that happen when your brain is working through something but doesn't have a way to naturally resolve. You remember you need to buy milk when in class, and you unconsciously allocate some part of your limited brain power to trying to remember to get the milk on your way home when instead you should be paying attention in class.

Generally, in that situation, it's best to just write down "milk" on a grocery list so that you know you can return to it later, freeing up that brain space that otherwise would be dedicated to remembering it.

I'm increasingly a fan of working with intention to not only close loops, but to keep others open on purpose.

I don't need in this moment to resolve my thoughts on what patient action can look like, but I can reflect on those notes from my neighbor and what I'm sharing here as more experiences come my way, refining the concept in my head and turning it around so I can see all of its sides while I evaluate.

Will report back.

(Im)patiently yours,
Rye

p.s. Okay, so the consensus is that matcha is grass, but that if you flavor the grass, it's palatable and healthy. I guess this makes sense, similar to spinach in a smoothie. So I tried matcha again, but this time with some fruit and milk and stuff, and it was tasty! The secret to matcha, it seems, is to cover up the matcha. What a journey.

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