Impatience

Most things that I want to do, I want to do now, immediately, and preferably five minutes ago. I am an awfully impatient person.

The problem is that the world doesn't often work the way and at the speed I would want it to. My kids don't brush their teeth when I tell them to, but twenty minutes later, and after having been told seventy times. My boss at work would not finish editing my proposal that evening, but after a week. My colleagues in the school association do not immediately respond to simple requests, but, um, never.

I see this phenomenon with my eldest daughter as well. And it is like having a mirror held up to oneself: you are not the centre of the universe. Other people have their own lives, be it games to play, work do to, or things to take care of. Their priorities are not always in line with yours. They may not agree with what you are asking of them, nor may they like the way you are asking.

And so, very little of what I want to get done gets done, if I do not:

1) Just do it all myself. I'm not the best team player, but work better on my own for this reason.

2) Use leverage. This may work with (small) kids and people with whom you have some way to influence their behavior. It's useless with most people.

3) Be strategic. I'm awfully, awfully bad at this one. It's like me and chess. I like just going with my gut feeling (and that is impatient, usually direct, and not always very diplomatic), and not planning thirty steps ahead.

As with chess, I usually lose. Unless it is just me, myself and I. We work at the same pace, have the same expectations, and don't do diplomacy.