A sense of urgency

Over the years I have learned how to become a pretty patient person. The world we live in, the things we go through day to day, requires that we should strive to have some sort of command of patience. However lately I feel like my pole has been greased and that I have been ever so slightly sliding back down it after perservering for so long trying to shimmy up it. I feel like I have lost a little patience over the last month.

One of my mottos in life has always been "Patience comes to those who wait" and for so long I have stuck by it. Lately I feel I am letting myself down for feeling this way. There are also times when I want to catch the bastard who has greased my pole too. But that would be too easy to lay the blame on someone else. Wherever there is a will there is a way. That involves nobody else but yourself.

So I try to hold fast on to the reigns of the patience that I have, take control of it again and reflect on it. I have learned to do that from early university studies in Reflective Learning. Reflective cycles are not just an academic thing I was studying, but a way of life. Our lives are full of critical incidents; situations or events which are in one way or another significant or memorable. I realise I have taken a great deal of time over the last few years to consider what has happened in my life and what I can learn from it, whether what has happened is good or bad. There is always something to study. And there is always a cycle of inquiry to pedal around.

Maybe it's the 'now' situation in which I find myself or maybe the fact that in the coming month I will blow out 37 candles and I sense another year going by. I want to finally complete my degree so I am now studying harder than ever before. I want to get over my latest niggling injury and get back on the hockey field and do battle with all the other guys. I don't want to put anything off any more. I want to focus on the road ahead and not on the traffic jam. I just want to get on with it.

So as I reflected I came to realise that I wasn't really losing patience, but if anything I am just as patient as ever. Instead I have a sense of urgency, an over powering will to move along and achieve and not stand still. Like an ex-hockey coach of mine would say: "Keep that ball moving at all times, don't let it stop. You might pause for breath but that damn ball doesn't." Maybe I am being tested; things will always get in the way and it is up to me to keep hurdling them.

So as the Italians say, "pedala, pedala", I keep going, I keep pedalling that cycle.