Fast: Crazy-Delicious Shaved Brussels and Citrus in a Mountain of Manchego! Slow: Luxurious Roasted Squash with Tahini Yogurt and Chile Drizzle.
Because patience is a virtue, but getting what you want when you want it is fabulous.
“PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE!” is something I used to mutter—in a church-lady/cartoon-mouse voice—when someone tried to rush me into shoving my bag into the overhead bin and sitting down so they could get by and do the exact same thing. I’d loud-whisper it in the movie-ticket line if the person standing behind me got so close I could feel the vibrations of their very soul.
This was many years ago, before my personality had cemented itself. But the fact that I could only employ this adage mockingly—and mostly under my breath— tells me that I probably didn’t believe it. Was patience really a virtue? Or a sucker’s game? Or maybe I didn’t fully believe I had the right to expect patience from others? Who knows.
It’s not that I remember myself as an especially patient person back then—or even someone who restrained herself from being pushy. But I do remember feeling like my choices were one or the other: Grab the bull by the horns and risk getting gored, or smile at the bull from a polite distance only to have it trot over and stab me with its horns anyway.
As time went on, I got little clarity. The constant, pro-impatience message I heard over and over in young adulthood—that the people who end up with the happiest lives are the ones who grab the best stuff the minute it falls out of fate’s piñata—turned out to be only half-true. Some of them ended up with “insider trading” next to their names in the newspaper or several miserable marriages or bankruptcies under their belts.