Dick, Roy, Bob, and I teed off early at the Edgewood Golf Course on a Monday morning in Big Bend, WI. We hoped to get our 18 holes of golf in before the Lutheran Brotherhood outing was to start. We did not make it. We came up to the 17th tee and there was a foursome in the fairway and another foursome waiting on the tee. So, it is going to be a long wait before we could tee off.
Coming up behind us was another foursome. I turned to one of the men and said, “Wow, playing today requires a lot of patience.” The golfer looked at me and said, “I am @#%&***not a doctor!” It was obvious that he did not have a lot of patience. He stomped around, drank his drink, and loudly complained of the delay.
I have learned that the situations and circumstances that we may encounter in life require a lot of patience. This is so true as we live with the threat of this Covid-19. States are in a process of gradually opening. Many people cannot wait for to State to reopen all venues. What is wanted is wanted immediately. This is a state of impatience. Impatience is a state of being selfish. Selfish people do not observe distancing; they congregate in crowds sharing air space and possible condemnation. Selfish people do not wear a face mask.
Selfish people only care about their own conditions and needs. The coronavirus demonstrates that people not only need to be concerned with their own needs and activities, but also with the needs and activities of other. A person may have the virus and not know it. In selfishly playing the game the virus may be transmitted to others.
Not only is patience required in dealing with the present conditions we face; it also requires endurance. We might consider that patience and endurance contain the same qualities in the ability to sustain life even when it is irksome or difficult. Patience and endurance are not glamorous. Patience and endurance may become boring. This is the underlying situation that is faced when you are required to observe, “Safer at Home.”
Phyllis Mielke wrote an opinion column “In my opinion: Kids should be taught to live with boredom,” in the Milwaukee Journal (July 21, 1998). In part it reads:
“But boredom is reality! As technology advances, so does boredom. Its much less challenging to turn out a perfect letter on a word processor than on a typewriter. It’s less challenging to press the buttons on an automatic washer than to keep the socks from becoming tangled in the wringer. Many jobs outside of the home and most housekeeping chores have become incredibly boring. Small wonder that many young mothers think they need to work outside the home to feel fulfilled.
“Instead of implying to children that they must never be bored, -and knocking ourselves out to ensure that they are never bored, we must tell them how boring much of life will be and give them many chances to learn how to handle boredom in a positive way.
“We must stop supplying activities for every waking moment, stop supplying playmates and ready-made teams, stop supplying a more challenging toy before the older one is really outgrown and stop supplying the next textbook, workbook or computer disc without missing a beat. We must encourage them to daydream during monotonous chores, to create their own games, projects and entertainment and to rely on their own brains to deal constructively with the inevitable frustrations of boredom.”
Dealing with Covid-19 it is important to follow the rules of survival. Violating them may lead to infection and even death.