I’ve recently discovered that patience is not a virtue I possess. Though, who decided it was ever a quality to be admired, I’m not certain. And it seems neither is anyone else. Most popularly the saying is attributed to a Chinese proverb, the full quote being:

Patience is a virtue
Possess it if you can
Seldom found in woman
Never found in man

So, it seems that this higher ability we are all aspiring to is admittedly all but impossible, and the joke is on the rest of us for trying. But maybe that’s just my current rabid impatience talking. In any case, I’m ready to throw that virtue out the door and aim for another virtue all together—forgetfulness. 

Perhaps it’s not currently on the list of good qualities we’re all told to aspire to, but that’s not to say it can’t be added. What do you say? Rather than patiently waiting for the standstill traffic to move forward, why not just forget that you wanted to do anything but sit in your car and jam to the radio anyway. Or, instead of waiting patiently for your significant other to repair that broken curtain rod, just forget it needed fixed in the first place and let your gaze slide over the hole in your wall where the bracket once hung.   Which makes the alternative to waiting patiently (ha!) on pins and needles to hear whether any of the publishers your literary agent submitted your manuscript to is going to make an offer for your book, conveniently forgetting you had a book under submission at all.  

Of course, if you forgot entirely, you would miss out on all those feelings of achievement and success you received from landing your agent and watching your book be submitted to publishers in the first place. So, I guess, I’m advocating selective forgetfulness, like selective hearing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just move through our days selectively forgetting the things that cause us anxiety and worry? 

I’m told this can actually be done, but I’ve never been able to manage it for more than a day or two. It’s like the angst builds up in my bloodstream until it’s seeping out through the cracks of my enforced veil of ignorance. Then the veil simply becomes pointless because you’re clearly aware of what you were trying to cover up in the first place. You may as well be walking around in a cheesy Halloween mask, because everyone, including yourself, already knows its really you underneath. 

Ever the perpetual optimist, I continually try and fail, only to try again, because I know no other way. I can’t allow myself to do anything else but believe that I’ll eventually succeed, be it at culturing patience, selective forgetfulness, or landing that coveted publishing contract. The alternatives are too depressing, and stink too much like failure to me. For what am I, if not hopeful? If I lose that, I may as well throw in the towel for life. So, I may adjust my goals, my ultimate expectations, my chosen battles, but I’ll always continue to try. And the only thing certain is that the cycle will continue, at least, until the day when I fall into the ranks of those “seldom” women who possess patience, or death. I can’t tell you which will come first, but I have a good guess.