Patience

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." -Galatians 5:22-23

There are times in my life when I am a very patient person. There are other times, however, when I am not. Now, there are some things that you just shouldn't have the patience for, like plagues or injustice. However, when you are working in an office, its a good rule of thumb to try to have patience with everyone else there. Even if they seem like it at times, they're not really your enemies.

Sometimes its difficult for me to remember that my co-workers are not my enemies. I'm a very detail-minded, very organized person. And I like everything around me to be organized as well. So, when people do things like leave their stuff all over my desk, or all over my office because they forget about it, it bothers me. Now, I don't always mind picking up after people, but when it consistantly happens EVERY DAMN DAY, I get to thinking that these people just don't respect me or my space at all.

Now, somewhere in my brain, I know that these people are just not "detail" people, like I am. These people are "big picture" people who get so enraptured with what they're trying to accomplish, that they leave in their wake piles of stuff that I need to pick up to avoid going mentally insane. (I'd ask them if I look like their mothers, but I'm afraid of the answer).

Don't get me wrong, both "detail" and "big picture" people are and very valuable to have around. Often, they compliment each other with wonderful results. I personally hope to marry a "big picture" person to balance me out a bit. I think that here, compromise is a good thing - I can be more messy as long as people respect my wish and try to be a little bit more organized. However, this simply isn't the case at my office. No one ever picks up their dang stuff! (Or they'll do things like taking two piles of my newsletters that need to be sorted for wrinkled copies, and only do one of the piles. That would normally be fine, except for the fact that they leave for home without telling anyone which pile they did - effectively rendering their entire afternoon of work absolutely worthless. Does that make sense to anyone? Am I being completely unreasonable?)

I'm not saying that I'm bossy, its just that I can usually figure out the best way to do things. I can go overboard at times, and during those times people often need to be very patient with me. When you think about it, life is more of a delecate balance of people's patience.

But even though I'm constantly being driven crazy by this stuff, I never want to lose patience and get angry (while anyone is in ear-shot). Losing patience usually snowballs into losing self-control and then losing gentleness and love for others. That's not good at all.

So, its been my prayer that I could try to strive for the best in others instead of for myself - that I could love others no matter what and try to be patient. After all, my office space will someday be a memory. The fact that someone stole my good scissors and lost it, or that there's always some mysterious coffee cup (that's not mine) on my desk the minute I turn around, isn't enternal. People are - they're what matter. So, I pray that I can be more patient at the office.