All through life I have struggled with patience. When God was handing out patience in heaven I got out of line. I didn’t want to wait.

Now the first step in the 12 steps of recovery is acknowledgment. Yes, I realize I have a problem. 

But for the first half of my life, I was in denial. I thought the rest of the world had a problem with time and I was the one that had it right. I feel that the most valuable thing on the plant earth is time. You can’t buy back a second for a trillion dollars. Not one second. When you spend time with someone, you are giving them the most valuable thing you can possibly give them – your time. 

So when you respect your time and other people’s time you are being respectful of the greatest gift God has given you. When you don’t respect your time or other people’s time, you are wasting your most precious gift.

I still believe these things. What I have changed my view on is the fact that other people don’t see or appreciate the truth of these things. In the first half of my life I expected people to see the obvious truth of the value of time. In the second half, I am beginning to accept that people don’t appreciate time in the same way I do. The way to fix the issue is not to get frustrated with other people, but to understand that I see it differently and the foolishness of trying to teach other people the value of time. 

The second and more important way to deal with this issue is to change myself. I cannot change others, but I can change how I deal with moments when I have to wait for others. That is within my power and that I can control by making the best use of my waiting time. I have developed many different techniques to make use of waiting time. One good one is to read. You can have books on your phone. Another is to pray. Another is to check social media or play a game on my phone. 

I am getting more patient, I really am. I feel very proud of myself that I have grown to be more patient in less than 70 years. Some people never get there. My family reputation for impatience is now the thing of legends. I may never be able to overcome my reputation in spite of hundred of thousands of hours I have spent and continue to spend waiting for other people. Oh well, they can waste their time on debating my current state of recovery, as for me, I don’t have the time to even consider it.