Patience...does it exist anymore?

I love this photo...I took it while we were on vacation this fall in Whistler. It reminds me of a cozy day, one in which I would like to be curled up on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book. Slow, relaxed...and pretty much the exact opposite of every day of my life.

I've been trying reeeaaalllyyy hard to instill the virtue of patience on my children. Especially Zach. He really has none. And I mean none. He wants something and he wants it now. Yesterday, in fact. And he usually asks for and expects about 7 things at once. Literally tonight he asked me if we could print out pictures of cars, look up photos of airplanes, change the ink in the printer so that his pictures will print, and play cars. All in a matter of 3 minutes. I heard myself saying: "I can only do one thing at a time...you need to be patient!"

Then I thought about it. Does he need to be patient? I mean, does that even exist anymore? We live in a world where we are expected to do 17 things at once. And we are proud of it! Every resume you read cites "multi-tasking" as a top strength. When was the last time you actually waited for anything? I think that doctors offices are the only places still in existence that still require people to wait. Alexis and I were almost run over at the grocery store yesterday by some impatient man who could not wait for me to load the groceries and kid in the car before he wheeled into the spot right next to me (nor could he pull into the WIDE OPEN spot about 40 feet away).

Most of the time I'm grateful for the tools and technology that allow me to be reachable at all times. Without those, I would not be able to stay home with my kids and work from home on my terms. I need to be able to get my job done from anywhere at anytime in order to make my little arrangement work. If I had to wait, or was unreachable, or had to go into an office...this gig would be up. For that I'm grateful. But it does make me question, how am I supposed to teach my kids the virtue of patience when we live in a world where it no longer exists?