do i have the time?

It is amazing, I have found that in the last few months or so I have been tested by people around me in a very particular way. It is undeniable that my days are busy, and with that comes an element of impatience within myself. I see it surfacing through in my behaviors and the moment I notice it, a couple of things happen: I express it habitually without even thinking, or I get frustrated by it being there and spend more energy being annoyed by my impatience than being present in the moment.

It is interesting to me...people and myself included have this demand for having the day exactly as planned, according to schedule, and when deviations from this norm occur, it seems to completely uproot the system. Our wicks have become quite short, and we take out that anger/frustration over our deviated day on those who have no connection. It is a problem in my opinion that lies within.

But it is interesting to me how I have been this way for so long, gained such an awareness around it, and then have been able to watch and observe it from a step backward.

In nursing school, I feel like my life changed. Circumstances allowed me to gain an element of self awareness that was not present in my life previously, and the ability to look at myself in a whole new domain was encouraging for me. I started to really notice habits of mine, behaviors that were so embedded within my world of expectation that I didn't even see them for what they were. And with this point in my life came an embrace of my impatience.

It popped up in my life in so many areas, traffic moving too slowly and I would find myself frustrated because I couldn't get where I needed to go. And then passing by a horrible wreck and watching bodies being carried off in ambulances. There are those moments of perspective that should keep us all in check. But still, I wouldn't give my impatience two glances. I would acknowledge it, and let it pass through with no real desire to understand and change it.

Then after my life turning point, I began to watch it...at first I watched it very closely, for I was in this heightened state of anxiety and because my conscience had finally caught up with me, I was keeping a close eye on all of my actions, making sure that I was not hurting anybody or myself. And that time was difficult, because I was able to really turn my face to my impatience and saw that it was EVERYWHERE.

That hurt me deeply. I saw that my need for control and strict adherence to a schedule was pervading my ability to be happy. And since I moved to Boulder and begun attending Naropa, I have become soft on myself. I see my habits for what they are, and know that sometimes they are going to be there and will exist out of impulse. But they don't define me...I feel like we are all daily evolving (as I said in my very first blog)...and that the ability to be nurturing to our own fallacies is a key ingredient to being truly human.