Why We’re Losing Patience: A Call for Mindfulness

I was standing in the queue in front of the elevator. The person ahead of me pressed the button multiple times. He was looking so impatient, like something urgent thing needs his attention. The 7-storey building and the elevator were taking time—the only lift for the building. All this happened in just one or one and a half minutes.

I stopped my bike at the Red signal, and that wait was hardly a minute long. Despite seeing the Red light on, the person behind me honked more than thrice. I stared at him once but of no use.

I took my bike a little aside, he broke the signal and rushed ahead. All within a minute.

At the office, I gave a print command and went to collect it, a colleague, who also gave the print walked towards the printer. It seemed he gave the command before me. He came and stood there like he had been waiting there for ages. After just five seconds, he tried hitting it, considering the paper might have stuck. But nothing happened. Then in the next few seconds the print came and he started talking to me about office gossip. The print paper in his hand and now no urgency at all.

The boss asked me to send him an email, I was resending it again, which I already had shared yesterday. As soon as he disconnected the call, I tried searching that email and was about to hit the ‘Send” button, he called again asking “How much more time?”. This all happened within 40-50 seconds. [I know, he will again ask me to send the same mail sometime again with the same urgency].

I was doing a mobile bank transaction and was waiting for the ‘OTP’ – a one-time password to complete it. I started tapping the mobile anxiously, looking here and there. The wait for the OTP seems like unending. All this happened within less than a minute.

Going back, I bought something for my kid. When I reached home, I told him it was a surprise and to wait until I got freshened up. By the time I was back from the washroom, the gift was unwrapped. All in just 3-4 minutes.

Why is this happening? Why do we all, at least most of all, get caught in this unwanted emergency?

Where are we heading and what are we going to do with that saved time or the time getting wasted, waiting at the elevator or at the Red signal?

Why are we not thinking about relaxing, waiting and looking around? To speak to the ones beside us, to smile and exchange a few words.

To move ahead and move fast, we forget to feel the present.

This is happening to everyone, from kids to adults. At the Home, on the road and at the office. Even in the garden, where we go to relax, we set a time for that relaxation.

Slowly, we are making our lives so time-bound that we stopped living.

I still remember, as a kid, I used to barge in any friend’s home unannounced. Giving advance intimation was not that accustomed at that time.

Now, the schedule has been decided as I will reach your home at 3 pm, and we will head to someplace by 3:30 pm. We will discuss/chat and leave back by 4 pm.

We constantly checked the dreaded mobile phones during that odd one or two-hour discussion. Some or other notifications, chiming of messages, no focus on what we were discussing and that meeting seemed like out of compulsion.

I know, we have to change with time, but this way of changing where we don’t have time for anything, is not desirable. Certainly not.