The Weight of the Wait!
“You need Patience”
One of the traits I admire in my three-year-old daughter is her sensitivity to explanations. For instance, if she makes a request and you explain why it can’t be possible at that time, she seems to understand like an adult and let the issue rest.
Recently, she started exhibiting traits of impatience and ignores the logical explanations that I gave. As I was brainstorming on how to teach her the need for patience, before she gets caught up with the spirit of impatience ravaging this generation, I discovered that the seed of impatience was systemic, and would take a deliberate effort to teach younger generations the need for patience.
How did we become so impatient in this generation?
In the past, before the many technological advancements and breakthroughs, it was much easier to be patient as there is actually nothing you could do but wait.
Here are a few examples.
Do you remember when you have to wait until 4 pm before you can put on the TV? That is, no matter how that child cries to see her favourite cartoons if it was not yet 4 pm, the crying will be in vain. With time, that child will know it is an effort in futility to cry when it is not yet 4 pm.
Do you remember how you will be praying for NEPA to restore electricity before the late-night movie will start at 10 pm?
What about how you waited for beans to get cooked?
Or the long walk to school, or the use of some rickety bicycles?
What about the many hours spent on a Lorry trip from the village to the city? That trip, despite our bad roads, won’t take half the time, and with better comfort.
Or the months you have to wait to receive a letter from a relative? With text messages, phone calls and the internet, these things are now instant!
Today, we have noodles, flakes and improved seeds that make beans cook faster than what we used to have. We have cables, internet, phones, solar, and other alternative sources of energy which has made our kids have everything they need immediately the need arises.
How do you teach a child patience when she needs to watch a cartoon, if there is no TV, there is a phone.
If there is no NEPA electricity, there is a battery, solar, or fuel-powered generating set.
With AI, ChatGBT, and many other technological advancements, we become more impatient as time-saving and speed are the selling points of these discoveries.
You get why these days, we have become impatient by default.
This is just a preamble to why deliberate efforts need to be made to teach our kids to bear the weight of waiting graciously.
Keep tabs on this space.
Idede Oseyande
Edo
(c) 2023
