"Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears."
~ Barbara Johnson
~ Barbara Johnson
Nothing brings out crazy quite like family get-togethers over the holidays. Why is that? What compels us as grown people who have no difficulty holding it together amongst strangers, to routinely regress and act out around the relatives? It can’t just be my family… can it?
I don’t know whether it’s because we’ve become overly-comfortable with one another or that we’ve been thrown together having so little in common aside from our last names; in actuality, it’s probably a bit of both. But after the impromptu fireworks have erupted, what then?
I know when I let loose - which thankfully happens far less than it once did – I feel terrible and have difficulty getting past it until I’ve apologized or discussed the situation ad nauseum with someone sane. But there are more regular fire starters who clearly feel less remorse over their actions and even seem to relish a good fight over nothing at all.
Regardless of why things are the way they are, if nothing else these circumstances are true opportunities to practice the art of patience.
"Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it." ~ Eknath Easwaran
