One of the things I don’t like about myself is my impatience when technology doesn’t work. I get frustrated, irritated, angry.
There’s a lot of impatience in the world today. We want results. We want the pandemic to go away. We want to see progress on global climate change. We want the economy to rev back up.
But, like so many other things in life, these changes won’t occur quickly. They will take time. And collectively as a nation, the United States is impatient. We want to see things accomplished yesterday, thank you very much.
Events don’t unfold that way. Nor do solutions get enacted and implemented and demonstrate results in the short run. Instead, we must wait. Figure out what went wrong. Go back over the details. Figure out a new path. Put it into place. See what happens.
Instead of accepting this as the way change occurs over a period of time, we get hammered over and over about what is wrong. We grow impatient.
I think that, in large part, each of us needs to recognize our hot buttons of impatience if we’re going to remain sane in the years ahead. Know exactly what it is that pisses you off. Determine if there is anything at all you can do about it. If not, plan to accept the consequences and adapt to a new reality.
One of the hardest things for humans to accept is when you can’t do something. Particularly when you want to. You’d like to change the outcome, but have absolutely no influence.
That’s at the heart of personal frustration. The gap between what you can do and what you want done.
Recently, Wordpress instituted some changes to its platform. I use Wordpress to publish this column. It’s not complicated. That’s a major reason I like it.
The changes they implemented weren’t readily apparent recently when I went to download the material for my next article. The system to download an image changed. There was no one there to tell me what was different. I had to figure it out myself, blindly, not knowing which buttons to click or how to proceed.
If you’re an IT nincompoop like me, this drives you insane. Frustration. Then impatience. And, finally, you want to destroy the desktop and give up.
Amazingly, after toying around, I figured out the new system. It wasn’t overly complicated, just a new way they wanted you to download. Okay.
Multiple this by X number of situations you face on a daily or weekly basis, where you don’t know how to fix something, or something has occurred that seems so fundamentally wrong yet you have no direct ability to do anything about it. Impatience and frustration grow.
Remember what you can and cannot affect. Bear in mind there is a time to walk about and say, “Screw it.” Go have a beer.
Most people, I would argue, don’t step away from their frustrations, instead letting them build up. I am certainly guilty.
Recognizing what you can impact, what your talents are, what you can actually DO about something is fundamental to the collective mental health of all of us. If you can master the ability of “not letting it get to you,” let me know your best technique. I’d love to share it. Everyone would benefit.
One of the things I don’t like about myself is my impatience when technology doesn’t work. I get frustrated, irritated, angry.
There’s a lot of impatience in the world today. We want results. We want the pandemic to go away. We want to see progress on global climate change. We want the economy to rev back up.
But, like so many other things in life, these changes won’t occur quickly. They will take time. And collectively as a nation, the United States is impatient. We want to see things accomplished yesterday, thank you very much.
Events don’t unfold that way. Nor do solutions get enacted and implemented and demonstrate results in the short run. Instead, we must wait. Figure out what went wrong. Go back over the details. Figure out a new path. Put it into place. See what happens.
Instead of accepting this as the way change occurs over a period of time, we get hammered over and over about what is wrong. We grow impatient.
I think that, in large part, each of us needs to recognize our hot buttons of impatience if we’re going to remain sane in the years ahead. Know exactly what it is that pisses you off. Determine if there is anything at all you can do about it. If not, plan to accept the consequences and adapt to a new reality.
One of the hardest things for humans to accept is when you can’t do something. Particularly when you want to. You’d like to change the outcome, but have absolutely no influence.
That’s at the heart of personal frustration. The gap between what you can do and what you want done.
Recently, Wordpress instituted some changes to its platform. I use Wordpress to publish this column. It’s not complicated. That’s a major reason I like it.
The changes they implemented weren’t readily apparent recently when I went to download the material for my next article. The system to download an image changed. There was no one there to tell me what was different. I had to figure it out myself, blindly, not knowing which buttons to click or how to proceed.
If you’re an IT nincompoop like me, this drives you insane. Frustration. Then impatience. And, finally, you want to destroy the desktop and give up.
Amazingly, after toying around, I figured out the new system. It wasn’t overly complicated, just a new way they wanted you to download. Okay.
Multiple this by X number of situations you face on a daily or weekly basis, where you don’t know how to fix something, or something has occurred that seems so fundamentally wrong yet you have no direct ability to do anything about it. Impatience and frustration grow.
Remember what you can and cannot affect. Bear in mind there is a time to walk about and say, “Screw it.” Go have a beer.
Most people, I would argue, don’t step away from their frustrations, instead letting them build up. I am certainly guilty.
Recognizing what you can impact, what your talents are, what you can actually DO about something is fundamental to the collective mental health of all of us. If you can master the ability of “not letting it get to you,” let me know your best technique. I’d love to share it. Everyone would benefit.