25 Impatience
“I want it NOW!”
Card messages in the Illuminated position.
+ Audacity
(Daring, boldness, resourceful, curious, competitive, chutzpah, engaged, abrupt, expedient)
- It is OK to be angry! Stop wasting time or having your time wasted by someone else. Have the audacity to do something about it! Make it loud and obnoxious if necessary.
- When situations arise that seem immovable, be daring and do something completely unexpected.
- Jump now! Waste no time! Act, or lose out.
Historic Quotes signifying the quality of the Overleaf in this pole
- “All serious daring starts from within.” Eudora Welty
- “Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.” Emma Goldman
- “Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage. ” Marianne Moore
- The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. Larry Wall
Card messages in the Shadow position.
– Intolerance
(Frustration, reckless, impulsive, rash, irreverent, harried, angry, flippant, tense, irritable, temerity, gall, impetuous)
- In the name of progress and getting things done, someone who is intolerant of opposing views or circumstances is trying to ram something through. Be careful that you are not bowled over in the process.
- Blamers are often frustrated easily and are angry at reality for how it is. Intolerant of the now, Impatience wants life to move to its timetable. If life doesn’t seem to be happening fast enough for you then ask yourself “what do I fear missing out on?”
Historic Quotes signifying the quality of the Overleaf in this pole
- “He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” Stephen Leacock
- “Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.” Mohandas Gandhi
- “It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail.” Lech Walesa
- “All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.” ~ Franz Kafka
- “No one is poor who does not think they are, however, if in prosperity with impatience they desire more, and proclaim their wants they disclose their beggarly condition.”~ Jeremy Taylor
Relevance within the Michael Teaching (Exalted Action)
Impatience compels one to seize opportunity whenever it presents itself. In this way, it is a survival mechanism that may serve a person in a competitive environment. By itself impatience makes for an impetuous person who wrestles with the ability to wait in fear that something might be missed, a chance not taken then becomes a loss. Essence uses Impatience Chief Feature (CF) in combination with the Goals more often than not. Pushing with dissatisfaction, the person in impatience may bolster confidence over outside events to drive itself passed obstacles: even when that means bowling them over or showing the audacity to go around them.
Quick to react, the Impatient person tends to believe themselves right in whatever they do; just as long as no one gets the upper hand with them. They are alert, bright, and in the extreme, almost predatory. The Impatient person seeks to have the world work on their behalf and on their timetable. In some cases, this CF enables one to “boldly go where no one has gone before” into a new realm of discovery or headlong into disaster. Impatient people don’t plan to fail. They fail to plan.
This Chief Feature bears out the King’s sense of entitlement regarding their position and rights. It bears striking resemblance to its accompanying Mode, Aggression, but might rise to overt anger only episodically, yet seethe with a fuming drive beneath until it is ready to explode. Respect for one’s own sense of competence and ability to control situations is what underscores many of the concerns held by both Impatience and Martyrdom: the former compensates by overestimating or overvaluing his capacities, while the latter will tend to diminish both.
Intolerance, of course, is the absolute unwillingness to endure any distraction, interference, obstruction or delay, no matter who or what the source or how appropriate it might actually prove to be. In staving off distraction, it to can be a distraction that binds a soul in a bridle of fury leading it to take actions that are destructive rather than affirming. Impatience attaches itself to an Ego who lack of trust and girds itself against a fear that it or someone else upon whom they depend is not competent to provide them with the opportunity they are driven to possess. Ego blocks the Essences direction and the assertion that through progressive steps, unfolding in proper time an place, what some paraphrase as “divine right order”; that all will be attained in perfect time. As a result, long run concerns grate against Impatience and short run gratification becomes paramount and the only objective. Even when it is plain that doing so creates problems for the future.
Once in that future, the Impatient person showing their intolerance at being questioned over earlier decisions (since their hubris and daring might look allot like Arrogance) slides quickly to vicious blamer and defiant victim. In moving over to its paired counterpart Martyrdom, the Impatient person, whose usual tolerance for victims is zero to negative, might be the first to claim that status justifying their actions with statements like: “I did it for the greater good” or “it seemed the best choice at the time.” General Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile from1973 to 1990 was successful (as he saw it) in killing hundreds (some claim thousands) of dissidents, leftists, and common citizens under his oppressive regime. Only years later, when out of power and called before a tribunal investigating the mass killings ordered by him, did he stand defiantly denying any knowledge or responsibility and at the same time invoking the “whatever I did I did for my country, defense.” This historic case illustrates an important similarity between Impatience and Martyrdom, neither takes any sort of genuine responsibility for their actions. Impatience blames and denies wrong doing with fury, while Martyrdom collapses and pleads powerlessness.
Famous Persons
Hillary Clinton, Robin Williams, Shirley Maclaine, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Mel Brooks, Andy Rooney, Harrison Ford, Captain Kirk, Madonna, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Sean Penn, Steve Martin, Elizabeth Hasselbach, Sting, Robin Williams, Bruce Willis, Road Runner,
Cultural Relevance
The Long Run vs. Short Run… perhaps no perspective is more crucial for making core decisions at this juncture of history. Both Economic and Environmental considerations can be dealt with in the “quick fix” approach that political expediency employs and forestall hard decisions until some other day and time. “Not on my watch” can be heard from legislators and leaders of most political stripes as side stepping real long run consequences hidden under contentious and spurious debates like those in the Clinton Impeachment proceedings, the lack of action on the perpetrators in the 2008 Wall Street motivated Housing Mortgage collapse, and most recently, the 2011 debt ceiling issue bringing the US Government to the verge of default on its debts.
Underscoring Impatience in the negative pole is the most corrosive of all emotions: hate! When someone or some group perceives themselves frustrated from attaining some claim or agenda, whomever seemingly stands in their way becomes the object of directed hatred.
Much of the terrorism in the world is the outward manifestation of this emotion. But what actually foments hate and keeps it in place? Answer: the victimization of the righteous sufferer as embedded in the mindset of all Conservative- Evangelical-Fundamentalist movements no matter what their origin. Extremism is a precise symptom of Intolerance as is the sense of something is or will be lost unless daring action is taken. From this premise, we can calculate how members of these movements justify acts like bombings, assassinations, character assault, sabotage, and silencing of opposition or criticism. Hate justifies all things. Sadly, it often invokes God’s name when doing so.
Impatience also arises at times when the status quo is to be challenged. The French Revolution and revolutionaries like Robes-Pierre were as ruthless and without mercy as any monarch or noble whom they decried as being criminally negligent in allowing France to fall into such economic or moral depravity. So to, with Lenin in Russia, overthrows and takeovers were bloody but from the reckoning of those in revolt quite successful. Why? Simply because in both cases, Impatience allowed a slippage into hatred which granted carte-blanche immunity from any moral or civil penalty upon those who carried out atrocities.
“To the victor goes the spoils” would be a favorite truism for a person whose belief that working with someone implies weakness. Thus a callous, harsh, or viscous action is somehow justified as a sign of strength on their part. Only the hate of someone and the fear of being so out of control of a situation can account for such inhumanity.
The paradox of Impatience is, and particularly the Intolerance of status quo, is to actually fight fire with fire. In other words, the only response to intolerant behavior and speech is intolerance of it. Yet, for that strategy to quell the hatred underscoring that chaffing intolerance, the true and genuine frustrations of the extremist must be heard and reasonably mitigated. Make very clear, that mitigation is not the same as capitulation.
For the West prior to World War II, through its willful ignorance of Hitler’s “final solution” allowed the wholesale genocide of 6 million Jews, half-million Gypsies, hundreds of thousands of retarded and disabled folk, and tens of thousands of homosexuals. Intolerance of intolerance is what a wise and noble King does by laying down and asserting boundaries and defending the meek. However, he also listens to the aggrieved and attempts to bring justice to those circumstances if legitimate. Otherwise, being expedient and Impatient with intolerance is merely throwing gasoline on a flame.
You might struggle with the demon called Impatience if…
1) I see others as either a help or a hindrance.
2) There never seems to be enough minutes in a day to get what I need done.
3) When I’m sitting in traffic I often want people to hurry up and stop wasting my time.
4) Slow people make me crazy. I just want them to get on with it.
5) I rush to the head of the line so I can make sure I don’t miss out.
6) My frustration level climbs when I cannot do things I want to when I want to.
7) I can sometimes grind my teeth or make fists when I feel stifled.
8) Tolerance of people who can’t make a decision is low.
9) Most everything I do has an air of urgency about it.
10) It is difficult to calm down when I think there is something I can do to alter a situation in my favor.
11) Don’t worry about the future just fix it now!
12) Everything I do is seems of immediate importance.