When you are young nothing is worse than sitting and waiting. You can't wait for anything. You can't wait till Christmas gets here, school to get out, to get your first job, to drive for the first time, to finally be grown up and the list goes on and on. Waiting is just not part of the DNA of young people, and that is a good thing.
Young folks are active. If a young person is not active then something isn't right. It is that simple really.
But, does that change with age? Well, yeah. Why? Because we accept it and have given in to it. We have agreed to the idea that "you have to wait."
Young people do. But, they stop doing if they don't see the point. If their dreams get ploughed under by grownups view of 'reality'.
A couple of months after I started my first full time engagement in Bremerhaven, I called my agent and asked him if we could line up some auditions for the coming season. His answer was, what is your hurry, wait a little.
Well, that really surprised me. Because I figured he would have been happy to try and get me more work. Anyway, I took his advice and waited. But that was not a good idea at all. Why?
Because you always must be moving forward, working on your agenda. You take care of the business at hand first, yes, but the larger picture is your development of talents for a larger scale. Waiting is the wrong attitude for that.
Patience is a different animal. Patience is more like hurry up and wait. Patience is doing everything you can, working hard on moving forward, but then having the patience to let your efforts bear fruit. But, nowhere in patience does it say wait. It says stay active, move forward boldly and expect your results to come in.
How many times have I been told to wait? Many. It is the worst advice I ever got. When you are young you don't know your limitations. Sometimes it seems like education is there to show them to you.
I was floored one evening when a colleague in a dressing room said, well, at some point you have to realize that if you have not had your breakthrough by the age of 30 it probably is not going to happen. While it isn't entirely true, most of the truly bigtime singers were that before they turned 30.
Taking the slow road doesn't get you there any faster, it is just waisted time. What people mean by the turtle beats the rabbit in a race is consistency of effort over time. That consistency can be any speed.
Waiting is the lack of action and expecting something to happen. Patience is action that doesn't wait for anything. Patience is about being the person you need to be to become the person you want to be. And that quality is persistent action.
The sun will come up tomorrow, but it is shining today. Make hay while the sun shines, for tomorrow will never come.