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The Joys of Travel and Patience
As the busy season comes back full steam ahead and we often find ourselves seated in an airport, train station, or in traffic on a highway for long periods of time, it’s all too easy to get frustrated at the little annoyances.
Whether it’s that passenger in front of you trying to find their seat and put their oversized luggage in the overhead, the person at security with the water bottle in their bag, or a slow driver in the left lane, finding patience in these situations is often difficult. Here are some tips that can be practiced to make the joy of the travel season a little easier.
Set realistic expectations: When planning your trip, be realistic about how long things will take. For example, you can plan to have at least an hour between connecting flights.
Be flexible: Embrace the unexpected and be prepared for changes. Delays and cancellations can mean you have time to do something else or linger somewhere longer.
Be mindful and empathetic: Practice empathy for yourself and others around you. We don’t always know what others are going through and the reasons they are traveling. Traveling has taught me many skills, but one of the best and most useful ones is that of patience.
Consider multiple perspectives: Patience can help you approach problems with a clear mind and find positive solutions.
Here are some ways that travel will also teach patience. A virtue, as the saying goes.
Learning to Wait: Waiting patiently is not a skill that most people have, but there is a lot of waiting involved when you travel. You can either get impatient or get used to it. Travel enough and you will get used to it. You’ll realize getting impatient doesn’t help the bus turn up any sooner or the corner restaurant open any earlier. See these waits as valuable breathing spaces on my travels, time to sit back and enjoy the scenery and take a good long look at the different people and places around me.
Making Yourself Understood: Dealing with people in other languages, whether you are trying to speak their language or they’re trying to use yours, is often not an easy thing to do. Patience is required for effective communication. Perhaps you need to take the time to look up some words in a phrase book or online, or you need to draw a sketch of what you’re after, or simply ask them to repeat themselves a few times so you can get the gist of the message.
Having Captive Time: When you’re “trapped”, so to speak, on a long flight or train ride, you gradually learn to appreciate and enjoy this time as “captive time”. There is not a single thing you can do to make your plane fly faster or your train arrive sooner, so you need to find a way to be patient with the journey.
Personally, this “captive time” is one of my favorite parts of traveling, nobody has any expectations for me to do anything particular during this time. I can’t do any chores at home. I might be able to do a bit of writing work, but nobody is standing over me, and I can’t even physically do too much besides sitting there (hopefully comfortably!).
Especially since I became a mother, and therefore very prone to attacks of guilt that I’m not doing enough for all the people I should be doing something for, sometimes the only time in months that I’ll feel properly guilt-free is when I’m captive while traveling. It’s fantastic!
Getting to Know Different Cultures: If, like me, you come from a culture where many people believe that “time is money” and when service takes a long time, people become irritated, you will probably find yourself feeling impatient in some other cultures. There are many places around the world where the “time is money” philosophy is not at all how the locals think and act, where patience reigns supreme!
If you spend enough time in one of these more relaxed cultures, chances are good that you’ll grow to appreciate their more relaxed approach to life. You’ll probably even take a good dose of patience back to your working and everyday life. Think over those surveys you’ve no doubt seen about the happiest places in the world, full of people who don’t rush around and don’t show impatience with anyone, they just take life as it comes and get things done when they get things done.
Happy traveling!!!
Adele Perkins, HMCC - Vice President of Membership
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