Remember the Oyster

Inactivity – you’ll be forced to wait … in lines, in offices, in traffic, in elevators. In a pressure cooker fast paced, high-tension high living society we’re in, we people would rather do almost anything but wait.

Why do you think they put mirrors inside and aroundelevators? So that people who look at themselves are so preoccupied they don’t get irritated waiting for their rides. I don’t understand why we are always in a hurry. Watch the way we drive. Watch the way we rush to board a plane and watch the way people rush to get out of the plane. One thingI have learned is to wait till everybody has boarded before getting into the plane. I get to read more and avoid having to fall in line and move at a snail’s pace in boarding the plane.Research has proven that people who are habitually impatient are the ones most prone to be heart attack victims.

Proverbs 19:2 says “Impatience will get you into trouble.” You could probably provide a few personal examples of thattruth!

I can. I have in my impatience said things or done thingsthat brought me regret to this day. I need something to remind me every timethe impatience flu begins to take effect. I need patience represented like alogo. Let me explain. Marketing people are good with logos. They have graphical representation of products or services that serve asvisual handles for people to remember. Many of the practitioners in marketing call this branding.I thought about this and suggest that if there is an object that could remind me to be patient, a tangible thing that reminds me to manage my frustrations, exercise patience and then wait for the situation to deliver positive results as a result of it then it would be an oyster.

Here is a material about an oyster credited to anomymity. The next time you have things getting under your skin, instead of being irritated and losing your patience, remember the oyster: There once was an oyster whose story I tell, Who found that sand had got under his shell, Just one little grain, but it gave him much pain,  For oysters have feelings although they’re so plain. Now, did he berate the working of Fate? Which had led him to such a deplorable state? Did he curse out the government, call for an election? No; as he lay on the shelf he said to himself “If I cannot remove it, I’ll try to improve it.”  So the years rolled by as the years always do,  And he came to his ultimate destiny–stew. And this small grain of sand, which had bothered him so,  Was a beautiful pearl, all richly aglow.  Now this tale has a moral–for isn’t it grand  What an oyster can do with a morsel of sand;  What couldn’t we do if we’d only begin? With all of the things that get under our skin. [1] 

As you come across the people who hits your hot buttons, people like your boss, your workmates,your customers and yes, even your mother in law, and you feel like you’re losing it….remember the oyster.