Patience

I don’t remember how old I was. I want to say I was in the fifth grade, but it’s been so long I can’t say for sure. What I do remember is walking through that Toys “R” Us store with my cousin who was in high school and already had his driver’s license.

It was almost Christmas, and I guess he was just trying to cheer me up. After my father died he would pick me and my little brother up from time to time and let us hang out with him and his friends.

But that day it was just the two of us.

I remember walking down aisles underneath the store’s bright fluorescent lights until eventually we came upon these bikes. There was this BMX dirt bike that I wanted so badly I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the store without it.

It may have been the first time I ever wanted something so badly, and I was close to throwing a tantrum. My cousin saw I was losing my cool and scolded me a little.

“Good things come to those who wait,” he said, and I remember feeling a bit embarrassed about having acted so childishly.

Luckily for me, his words ended up coming true.

I got the bike for Christmas

I don’t know why, but it’s one of those memories that’s always stuck with me, like this constant reminder of how impatient I can be.

I bring all this up because this morning when several people reported that the paywall feature on my blog wasn’t working, I started losing my patience again.

Why can’t it just work? I thought, even as the thought occurred to me that it was only a week ago that I wrote my article titled “Everything is hard”.

The truth is, over the last four years there have been plenty of times when I’ve lost my patience when it comes to the eCash project. Maybe I want it to succeed so badly it’s like me and that BMX bike all over again, and what I need is someone to tell me what my cousin told me all those years ago:

Good things come to those who wait.