Relaxing

Relaxing

Patience is different than relaxing. We vacation so we can do nothing and call it relaxing. When we are on a vacation, we can develop lots of patience. Sitting on a beach for hours on end is helping us unwind, when usually we can’t stand waiting in a doctor’s office for more than 10 minutes. An interesting way to develop more patience is to compare waiting to relaxing.

Mostly, when we are impatient, it’s because something we can’t control seems to be wasting our time. One of my proudest moments was when I broke my leg and had to wait in the emergency room for about six hours. It was an opportunity to practice patience, and there really wasn’t anything I could do about it but take a deep breath and relax. There had been a terrible accident on the freeway, and the emergency personnel had to take care of those people first. I just had a broken leg, and while it hurt, I was in much better shape than anyone else who showed up that day.

So I had a choice. I got out some old crossword puzzles and worked on them. I read the newspapers, and I read some magazines. I probably could have slept, but I have never been able to sleep in the hospital, much less the emergency room. There’s just too much going on in there to rest. So as I passed the time, I knew those who needed the help were getting it, and eventually I would be seen. It was an interesting chance to try and relax while I had to wait.

Even when I’m stuck in a long line at a store, I try to change my perspective and use the opportunity to really notice the abundance around me. There are thousands of products in most retail places, and I rarely take the time to examine the price, the purpose and other details of products. There are some really interesting magazines at the check-out stand which I would never buy, but it’s fun to flip a few pages in and read the latest gossip.

As an actor, I get the chance to play all kinds of characters. In the past year alone, I’ve played an abusive alcoholic father, a church official, a cop, a ventriloquist, and a dead baker. So I like to look around and study the people I see. This is a technique used by the famous Russian acting teacher Stanislavski. Looking around and observing people gives me the chance to integrate some of the behaviors, speech patterns and body postures I see all around me. It can give us a chance to see the variety of life which is lived by others. We tend to think our lifestyle is how everyone else lives, and if we step outside ourselves for a moment, we will truly understand how our lives might not be so miserable as we think. We may find out we have a pretty good life after all. Or as Jimmy Stewart is told by Clarence the Angel, “You know, you really had a wonderful life.”

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most patient person in the world, and as a teacher, I am the worst student in the world. I’ll get a chance to behave tomorrow as I attend a workshop, but I’ll probably get up and wander just because I know there are so many interesting things to see in the classroom besides the front of the room and the instructor.

When are we most patient? If you are getting a massage, it’s easy to be patient and want to spend more time getting relaxed as our muscles are manipulated. When some people play video games, they aren’t relaxed, but are very patient while they try to get a new high score. They can pass hours patiently trying to beat the machine, and most of us are guilty of the same thing in front of the television. We can sit patiently for hours while our favorite programs play in between the hundreds of commercials.

If we are engaged in a hobby, time passes so swiftly we wonder where it went. If you are reading a good book, you can emerge from the pages hours later wondering how time can fly so fast. If you are doing something creative, or spending time in recreational activities, you’ll notice time flying, and not like the alarm clock you fling across the room when you want to sleep in. For me, when I am skiing, windsurfing, gardening, or building something from wood scraps, the time speeds up and vanishes.

We know the time is passing at exactly the same rate. How we enjoy these seconds, minutes and hours may only depend on our practice of patience.

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