Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Impatience
Good morning,
The longer the sooner
Little AhChye was very excited over what his mother was going to cook for him for his third birthday. He kept going into the kitchen and bothering her. So much so that his mother said, "Now be good, sit quietly or go out. The longer you wait the sooner you'll get it."
This is very true no matter how ironical it is. All of us experienced this. Impatience very often gets nowhere.
Remember how we used to rush into answering the examination questions without reading all the questions and ended up unable to cope with the whole paper.
A friend once told me this, something he loved to do with impatient people. He handed the fellow a paper with 20 questions to answer within a period of time. He gave the START and the fellow frantically began writing the answers which included poking the paper at certain places, tearing a corner of it, folding it and unfolding it, put an X somewhere, scratching out some words, and doing a lot of other funny actions. He enjoyed the scene while the fellow completed the answers, well within the time given. Well, how did he score ?
He failed completely. At the top of the question paper, before question No. 1 there was an instruction in capital letters "DO NOT ANSWER ANY OF THE QUESTIONS ON THIS PAGE, ANSWER ONLY THOSE QUESTIONS ON THE BACK OF THIS PAPER"
Once while we were talking about the driving habits of drivers in Singapore I said, "This driver overtook me four times from Bedok to Toa Payoh." Some looked puzzled, others laughed. How can this be so ? Well, it was not a joke and it was the truth. This fellow kept tailgating and changing lanes, all the time looking for an opening; that was his own way of skillful driving. What happened was that each time there was a gap he would cut into it and went ahead by a few car lengths. But then he got slowed down, and he had to cut back into another gap, behind me. He would pass me by cutting out again, but as usual I would pass him again while maintaining normal traffic flow. Poor driver, all this reckless hectic blood pressure raising manoeuvres and not getting anyway sooner. Not many people can imagine how a driver can be overtaken by another driver from one place to another without being in a race. This happened only in a circuit race.
I loved to tell my wife to observe while all this happened, and very often indeed.
Someone said, "All good things come to one who waits."
An angler always waits; he goes home with fish doesn't he, ha ha !
Have a nice day.
Ronald
The longer the sooner
Little AhChye was very excited over what his mother was going to cook for him for his third birthday. He kept going into the kitchen and bothering her. So much so that his mother said, "Now be good, sit quietly or go out. The longer you wait the sooner you'll get it."
This is very true no matter how ironical it is. All of us experienced this. Impatience very often gets nowhere.
Remember how we used to rush into answering the examination questions without reading all the questions and ended up unable to cope with the whole paper.
A friend once told me this, something he loved to do with impatient people. He handed the fellow a paper with 20 questions to answer within a period of time. He gave the START and the fellow frantically began writing the answers which included poking the paper at certain places, tearing a corner of it, folding it and unfolding it, put an X somewhere, scratching out some words, and doing a lot of other funny actions. He enjoyed the scene while the fellow completed the answers, well within the time given. Well, how did he score ?
He failed completely. At the top of the question paper, before question No. 1 there was an instruction in capital letters "DO NOT ANSWER ANY OF THE QUESTIONS ON THIS PAGE, ANSWER ONLY THOSE QUESTIONS ON THE BACK OF THIS PAPER"
Once while we were talking about the driving habits of drivers in Singapore I said, "This driver overtook me four times from Bedok to Toa Payoh." Some looked puzzled, others laughed. How can this be so ? Well, it was not a joke and it was the truth. This fellow kept tailgating and changing lanes, all the time looking for an opening; that was his own way of skillful driving. What happened was that each time there was a gap he would cut into it and went ahead by a few car lengths. But then he got slowed down, and he had to cut back into another gap, behind me. He would pass me by cutting out again, but as usual I would pass him again while maintaining normal traffic flow. Poor driver, all this reckless hectic blood pressure raising manoeuvres and not getting anyway sooner. Not many people can imagine how a driver can be overtaken by another driver from one place to another without being in a race. This happened only in a circuit race.
I loved to tell my wife to observe while all this happened, and very often indeed.
Someone said, "All good things come to one who waits."
An angler always waits; he goes home with fish doesn't he, ha ha !
Have a nice day.
Ronald
# posted by chunmu @ 7:00 PM 
