"A Little Goes A Long Way"

By Florence Ondré

This attribute; this commodity; this vaporous substance; ever seeming in short supply could go for big bucks and have a street value higher than pain pills.

This illusive energy flits away like a firefly in July. Now you see it; now you don’t.

Just think of the daily commute; hours in traffic and, no matter how much you know that this is a process and it’s going to take some time to get to your destination, you’re tired; worn thin from the day. You’re looking forward to getting in your domicile, closing the door on the world, taking a nice long shower or tub, eating and dropping into bed. All without other people and their energies crashing in on you like uninvited party guests.

Ahhh, would that all your kindness, compassion and understanding could stay present all the time to keep your basest. grubby, forgetfulness of niceties at bay.

You are, after all really a very nice person. You know it; others have said so and doggone it, people like you.

Having stated the obvious, you might just begin to discern a smidge of foam at the side of your mouth and notice that your jaws are clenched tighter than a noose around a prisoner’s neck at the lynching. Your shoulders have pinned your ears up about an inch and a half at the very least and there are already itsy bitsy trenches between your eyebrows, which are closer than you remember from the morning mirror look-see.

It’s official. You are at the very least…cranky; verging on an slippy slidey path to agitated and irate.

Reasonable has left the building and willingly follows you like a growing shadow that Peter Pan could not possibly fit to your shoe no matter how much fairy dust Tinker Bell sprinkles on.

You’re exhausted and overloaded with whatever giant economy (ha) size big gulp of fear you bought on sale today.

The mere thought of having to wait cheerfully while the world goes to hell in its horrible little handbasket -or ,at the very least, wait without shrieking or seizing someone by the throat as they slow up traffic, make dumb mistakes, cut you off, walk in front of you like you didn’t exist or have the right to take up room on the pavement or give you the finger or a less than kind word is beyond ability.

You, dear soul, have reached your wits end.

And wasn’t that a shorter trip than you ever dreamed it would be?

You have run out of that preciousness called patience.

What could you have been thinking? How did you lose it and where did it disapear along the way?

It’s a stunner, isn’t it, when you think back on the train wrecks which follow the slip this energy gives you?

Even a kind word can send you over the edge into a tantrum.

“What could that dimwit been thinking when she said, ‘Have a nice day’? Did she forget that payroll was short, we didn’t get lunch and now it’s traffic snarls to match my mood in the stretched to over 3 hour commute home! What is she? Some kind of vicious hobgoblin? Nice day, my ass!”

This about one of your favorite colleagues, friends or neighbors.

Well, you might just want to take in a breath, release those shoulders from their perch as fleshy earirngs and remember that everything is gonna take as long as it takes and there’s a divine timing in flow that is bringing things about in ways better than you can imagine.

Might as well, put on some music, notice one good thing, feel the release and a smoother heart rate as you settle into change and, once again, practice patience.

Even one small moment when you have patience counts and when you have it for yourself, you can have it with others and situations over which you probably have minute (if any) control.

Then you could just think on how you didn’t throttle anyone today-even if you thought about it.

That’s gratitude following patience… and self restraint.

As Martin Luther King Jr said, “I may not get there with you……”

Just for today, it’s possible I’m right behind you, flying my crankyflag high until the process brings me that little bit which goes a long way home.