Monday, September 8, 2014

The Lost Art of Patience

I watched a highly acclaimed  movie at Cinema Arts and I didn’t quite “get it.”  It seemed rather unremarkable.  It was about a fairly average family with slightly more than the usual stresses of life.   It had a lot of coming of age elements for   both the young kids as they mature into teens and for the parents as they grow into adulthood.  As I was watching I wondered when the kid actors had been replaced by teen actors.  I figured the casting director had done such a good job that I missed the switch.

As I was leaving the theater a review of Boyhood, caught my eye.   It explained the brilliance of the movie.

Boyhood was filmed by Richard Linklater over a 12 year period of time.  He used all the same actors and allowed them to age naturally – in real time.  No wonder I had missed the switch.  There wasn’t one.

To me the true genius of the film was Linklater’s patience.  Twelve years is a long time to work on one movie.  But this was a project that couldn’t be rushed.  Had it been, it wouldn’t exist.

Patience, savlanut, in Hebrew is becoming a more difficult trait to cultivate.  We live in a quick world.  If a video doesn’t download in 2 seconds, we get frustrated and give up on it.  If our food isn’t ready in 2 minutes we get impatient and eat something else.  If a movie goes longer than 2 hours, we get ancy and start checking our phones.

This leads to a ‘”give up” mentality.  We are losing the ability to have the patience to see a project through, to let an idea germinate.   As this happens we will no longer have the joy of finally achieving a goal for which we have waited and worked hard to attain.

Sometimes we still experience this joy in sports or in a dance class.  If we have a coach or teacher who is willing to give us the chance to grow and to improve, we might get an opportunity to patiently grow.  But many adults don’t put themselves in a class situation with new, sometime frustrating challenges. Malcolm Gladwell’s premise of 10,000 hours being the amount of time it takes to become an expert at anything, certainly takes patience and perseverance.   Will we become a society of quitters of people who settle for mediocracy?

Being a good listener, valued as the most important skill in a relationship, takes patience.  We have to be willing to put aside our own desire to rush in and speak if we want to really understand someone else.  We have to give them time to formulate their thoughts and ideas.  Sometimes it might mean to sit in silence and listen to the words which aren’t being said.

As Rosh HaShanah approaches, set an intention to start something now that you might not finish until next year or the year after.  Pick a new skill to learn.  Plant some bulbs this fall and enjoy them next spring – the literal flowers and the figure seeds of a new project.  Or just sit patiently and listen.



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