Helena Rodriguez: Patience can’t stop every crisis

Guest Columnist

I use to worry that I didn’t worry enough.

I had a mini-crisis a couple of weeks ago. Things were going rather smoothly, so I knew a crisis was around the corner. It caught me unexpected. I expected that.

It’s either a sign of maturity or insanity — take your pick — when things that are supposed to shake your whole world just give you a little jolt. Flash back 20 years and it was the little jolts that seemed to shake up my world.

These days it seems to be the little avoidable things that steal my attention while the elephants in the room are merely for decoration, for home improvement, or rather, self-improvement. There’s always room for more of that.

During my early adult years, back when I was always right because I knew it all, it didn’t take much to make me mad. But now that I have been there and done that, I seem to have become an expert lately in not knowing it all.

Call that unlearning for the learned.

Unlearning bad habits makes you not-so-smart, but for your own good. It’s not called second-guessing yourself, but, because the doctor of dumbness is in, it’s getting a second opinion.

I guess I’m saying that the more independent I have become, the more I have realized that God made us to be dependent, dependent on one another for something or another, otherwise, our too-smart for even our own selves bodies would never leave their comfort zones.

They say that patience is a virtue. For decades, my motto was, “God give me patience, and give it to me now.”

Finally I realized that if I wanted to hurry up and become patient, that I had better take the scenic highway.

Long story short, no matter how prepared you are or think you are, life is going to throw you curve balls.

Dinner will not always be served on time and there will always be unwanted guests. I’m talking about the unwanted guests that come as demons of doubt.

It is just when you say “I don’t have time for a crisis,” that boom, here it comes.

That is when the “I can’ts” surprise you and turn into “I ams,” “I wills” and “I’m gonnas.”

Helena Rodriguez is a Portales native. Contact her at: [email protected]