What Can I say? I'm in a hurry. So much so that I forgot to put my girlfriend's car in gear as I parked it in my driveway. As a result I came to find it across the street in my neighbors front yard, with the front bumper lodged between both sides of a gutter slope (this happened Wednesday night by the way). Anxious and still needing to get going I tried everything that I could minus disassembling the front bumper to get it loose so that I could get back on the road and towards my destination. My generation is notorious for this type of on-the-go, "my way or the highway", scatter brained mentality. We go from our flat screen TVs, to laptops at home (often simultaneously) to our cell phones and ipods on the road. We do this seamlessly without even thinking about what we might have missed because of our obsession and reliance on technology. Because we want things instantly (instant rice, instant replay, instant messenger, instant loans/credit, instant downloads), we have forgotten the virtue of patience that our parents attempted to instill in us.
I don't know if I can live without my blackberry, but I know that I don't need everything right away. I can wait, start up a conversation with a stranger and act like a human being who speaks English and not just text lingo.
On the news I have heard a lot about the discontent of certain talking heads concerning health care reform. Before it has even been given a chance, the impatience of some lawmakers is to "repeal and replace." Seriously? When have we become so impatient that we refuse to see the first week of a new law, let alone see it through to the end. I don't know what Christian values these reportedly "Christian lawmakers" are choosing to utilize in their arguments, what I do know is that those 32 million uninsured Americans have had their prayers answered and that is one of the few types of instant gratifications that I can get on board with.
I suppose House Democrats were probably getting impatient with trying to pass a policy which our President ran on. But perhaps not more so than the struggling father of four children who lost his job a year ago and is battling cancer. It's been over 60 years since the US has made this appeal and it has finally gone through. It was a long road that had a political, economic and for me a very personal cost.
As I ran down a rural North Carolina road this afternoon with my iPod playing, I thought about some of the homes that I was passing and how many of them would now not have to worry as much about the availability, affordability or ethical implications of their health care. As I looked to the horizon, I patiently took my strides back home. I looked down at my iPod with an inspired peace of mind and I thought,"there's no App for that!"
