Strange Advice from a Counselor

My counselor gave me the strangest advice a few months ago. Almost out of the blue, she said, “You should start waiting in the longest lines you can find.” She meant everywhere—at the grocery store, getting my car’s emissions checked, ordering dinner last in our group of friends. I hadn’t even been talking about patience or anything; I had been talking about my life in general.

But she wanted me to wait more. I do not want to wait more. I want to wait less. I look around my life and there seem to be lots of places where I see others get to go first and I have to wait my turn. It’s frustrating. But there is also something really important about knowing when it is my turn and when it isn’t.

My counselor wanted me to practice waiting my turn in what I could control since I’m getting ample practice in waiting in ways I can’t control. So even when I’m running short on time, I pick a parking spot a little farther away (Get those steps in, am I right?). And even when I’m exhausted after work, I pick the longest line at the grocery store—the one behind that woman with all the coupons and more tiny things in her basket than one would have thought humanly possible.