How To Be An Overnight Success in 15 Years or Less


Every once in a while I am complimented on my level of
patience and tolerance. (If only my wife were around
for those occasions)

Seriously though, I had another one of those
conversations today with one of my adult students. We
were discussing the possibility of her taking on some
students of her own when she remarked, "Oh, I just
don't have the patience. And I certainly could NEVER
be as patient as you."

Well, after squeezing my head back into my hat, I told
her that my degree of patience wasn't always what it
seems to be today. In fact, the thing I prayed for
most early on in my teaching career was... you guessed
it - PATIENCE!

Admittedly, I started out blessed with a fair amount of
tolerance; at least enough for me to survive my job
from day to day. Still, there were many days when I
got right out there on the edge. At those times it
took a major effort to prevent me from saying the
things I wish I could say. (Of course, none of you
have ever had those moments, right?)

For the longest time it seemed that the more I prayed
for patience, the more TESTS I got. It wasn't until my
beard started getting gray that I realized, "Hey, this
is how it works. It's all resistance training."

If I want bigger muscles, I don't just wiggle my nose
and blink my eyes and 'POOF'... I've got bigger
muscles. Nope, I gotta get me some weights. The
heavier the better. And the more I lift them, the
quicker I'll get results.

When it finally dawned on me that just about everything
else worth gaining in life worked like that, I started
smiling and relaxing and looking forward to my next big
test. I started LOVING those 'patience' workouts.

With enough experience, you can make anything look
easy. So much so, that sometimes people might think
you were born that way. This is not always true, at
least in my case. My patience level was acquired over
many years and I'm STILL working on it.

Next time you see my wife and I together, how about a
little compliment for my patience.

In my next life, I'll focus a bit more on modesty.

Virtuous in Toronto,
Russ