Why The Patient Dog Won’t Eat The Fattest Bone
They Lied To Us
Once upon a time, when I wanted to register for my Jamb exam.
On a graceful Monday, I went ahead to the registration centre. Getting there, I met a lot of people queuing to get registered and I didn’t want to struggle. I felt a little lazy to stand in the queue and also tried to exercise patience, so I decided to get a seat under a beautiful Mango tree.
It was a lovely morning, I had planned to spend the whole day there because it takes quite a while to get registered. While I was waiting patiently for the queue to get scanty, more people were coming into the centre. People got registered in batches, until the 13th batch when I finally got tired of waiting because it was getting late in the evening.
I then joined the queue, but unfortunately, only the people at the front-line of that queue got registered. They told the rest of us that they were already done for the day. The next day, I had to look for another centre close to my residence to get registered. I guess it wasn’t really a good day after all.
Now I need you to get my point, I’m not trying to discourage you from being patient; You need to know where to always draw the line.
Ever heard about a salesman who was so desperate to talk to a prospect that he sat on hold waiting for the customer for more than one hour?
Finally, his secretary came online and said: “I’m really sorry, Mr Collins said he has lost interest in speaking with you about the product”. Ouch! A pain in the aşş.
I’ve met a lot of people, especially religious people, that always say you have to be very patient to thrive in life. They’ll give you very idiotic pieces of advice, saying “whatever is yours will always come to you”. That’s literally the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
For me, I think this is an act of laziness and procrastination. Being patient doesn’t mean you’re going to have to wait endlessly at the front of your house looking for a cab when you can walk to the nearest bus stop in your neighbourhood and get moving. People use laziness as a disguise for patience. Whatever good thing you want will not get to you, you have to go for it and fight for it until you get it.
Trust me, It feels like the world is working against you. Everyone tells you to do the opposite of what you want, they tell you to wait, they tell you to forget, they tell you to move on, they tell you it isn’t worth it. You know what’s important to you and what isn’t.
It’s fine to want something so desperately, it might actually be a good thing; If you wake up thinking about it — and when you try to lay down again to sleep the thoughts still don’t get out of your head, then there’s a reason you can’t let go. Come on, stop being too patient. Fight for it, man.
You need to have no absolute shame in getting what you want. Trust yourself enough to know that thing will work out when you go for it.
I have absolutely no shame in going for what I want.
This brings me back to the experience of a normal day in the life of an average Lagosian. Nobody likes the continuous sound of the car-honk. Nobody likes to be caught up in traffic, but ask a Lagosian what it feels like to be caught in traffic, very terrible. Imagine being in a bus where the driver is very timid in traffic and doesn’t want to get on the faster lane. I’m pretty sure passengers could start cursing him.
Everyone wants their bus driver to be more aggressive, maybe not too aggressive but always checking the side mirrors every minute trying to get into a faster lane and making sure no vehicle gets in front of him. That’s why you’d see that drivers are always honking in traffic. Nobody likes traffic, no one likes to get late for office, no one likes to get slowed down.
If a bus driver is that aggressive, why are you waiting for what you want to get to you? If a driver is being too patient in traffic, I’m very certain everyone will sleep in that bus — literally.
The Patient Dog
The patient dog isn’t the one that sits at the corner watching while others fight for the bones. If it keeps watching, it would only get leftover bones. It would be skinny and beyond doubt, die of hunger.
The patient dog is the one that battles and fights with dogs who are larger than it for the prize (bones). The patient dog is the one who goes straight for the fattest bone and bites deep into it with its teeth, never letting go no matter what.
The patient dog is hanging on to the fattest bone even though the other aggressive dogs attack it. It keeps hanging on until the rest of the dogs get tired and go for smaller bones.
Now you know what the patient dog is really all about.
Be patient with what you wish to accomplish. Hang on, but keep pushing. No matter how many times circumstances, challenges, and people try to drive you down, keep hanging on. That’s what patience is really all about.
Patience doesn’t sit idly waiting for what the future brings. Patience determines how it wants her future to be. It’s a continuous action until you get what you want.
Anyways, I love dogs though.
