Time’s Up: I’m Glad I’m Losing Patience

Lately my patience is growing shorter to the point of disappearing. For the longest time, when faced with a mismatch between the world and me, I would often take a breath, dismiss my hesitation or disagreement or unease, and proceed with someone else’s agenda. Now that doesn’t happen as much.

I consider this to be progress.

Tick-tick-tick. How much patience remains?
Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay

What’s changed?

One big change is a reduction in my tolerance for the discomfort that arises when the reality you are offered isn’t working for your inner wise person. You innate knowing. Your common sense. Your spirit. I’m no longer so available to override myself.

A friend told me she can view the people in her life as either agriculturists or hunter-gatherers (foragers). The former value routine and tradition, while the latter are free to be more in the moment. Using that lens, I could explain my change by saying I’m in touch again with my innate hunter-gatherer nature, after some decades halfheartedly trying to fit in with the agriculturists.

Using another lens, a current-events one, the reason for my loss of patience is glaringly obvious. If this is where being patient has gotten us, who needs it? It’s time for something quite different.

Or reflecting on the women anchoring the branches of my family tree – that’s another plausible source of my learned impatience. The rules – both legal and unwritten – they had to contend with. The odds stacked against them. The expectations that could have crippled them – and sometimes did.

Are you destined to turn into a monster when you decide to lose your patience? I don’t think so. The road will be bumpy, but, let’s be real, bumps happen, whether you’re still putting up with things or have crossed into time’s-up territory.

Doing anything creative invites bumps, vortexes, spirals, blind alleys, distractions, rabbit holes, brick walls, boredom, and nightmares (and much, much more). I’d like to imagine that some heartfelt impatience will help us overcome those impediments, welcoming us instead to thoughtful dedication and inspired, intentional work.

Where are things for you on the put-up-with-it / time’s-up continuum?

Here’s to the ongoing process of discerning what works for you and what does not. May it continue, at speed, for us all.

Luna Project update

My music and video for Strawberry Moon went up on 29 June – the music video and audio are here. If you want to know each time a new piece launches in honor of the full moons of 2026, subscribe to my YouTube channel. To add high-quality downloads of the music to your playlists, please visit me on Bandcamp. Thanks for your support! Next up, Buck Moon on 29 July.

Thanks for reading