Patience (07) / #100DaysToOffload

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Following on from my last post about the (increased) noise on social media, there’s also an increase in the number of people who have forgotten what it means to be patient.

From the frustration of a queue to enter the supermarket (that didn’t use to have a queue, before social distancing), a longer-than-normal wait at the doctors or on a call centre support call, and to the speed at which a tweet or status update is taken out of context and escalated to a previously unknown level of anger or resentment or trolling.

In stressful times we need to make the (increased) effort to be calm and understanding of others, and that we need to give others the space to do the same. Lockdown and the impact of the Covid pandemic aren’t going to go away anytime soon, unfortunately, and the stresses and pressures we’re feeling are likely to increase. Therefore we must adjust our expectations of what we would normally expect from others to allow them, and us, to adjust too. Just because we’ve been doing this for the last 5 months doesn’t mean we’re any good at it yet.

We are all in this together, even if it is a socially-distanced together. We can and should model good behaviour, for no other reason than to show those with less experience or patience how to handle these difficult times.

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash