Patience is a Virtue

I had a big issue with my computer this week, so IT guru Angie to the rescue and much to my surprise it was not just a quick fix where I have opened or clicked something I should not have, it was a long drawn out process of diagnostic and then resolution triumph.  In the hours we got talking and Angie described how in the early days of computers as things were loading or downloading there was no spinning wheel or progress bar.  And so those early adopters would get impatient as things were happening behind the scenes on their computer and would shut them off or restart the download and especially back then the system would crash.  So the early creators came up with the idea of the buffering real time animations- the arrows, the spinning wheels, the progress bar, so that one could feel assured that something was happening.  So interesting, and I think of all kinds of situations where something could be happening around us and we would, in general, be so much more patient if we could see the progress bar or at least a spinning wheel indicating that some kind of slow change was unfolding.  So many times when we introduce a new idea, or a new way of doing things we do not see immediate results.  We work to make a change in ourselves and time and again we do not instantly lose the 30 pounds and get frustrated.  How different would it be if we could look at a progress bar?  That our knowledge and experience has increased 34% or our heart health is buffering to the positive after a life change or that our bias is lessening 14%  in our recent work with lived experiences.  We are hard wired for feedback; we respond so well when we can see the instant impact.  Where do we look for our progress bars?  Journaling, reflection, conversation, dialogue, plotting our progress somehow when there can be no instant change to see.   I think if we are on this journey called life, we are changing, downloading something new all the time, we just need to know that the wheels are turning and buffering for a better us, in small percentages at a time.