red light green light

they say patience is a virtue. lots of people say it. i don't know who said it first and i'm too lazy to look it up. if you aren't quite as lazy as me, please find out where this originated and let me know. i'm really dying to find out.

i guess this saying suggests that if you're a good boy or girl and wait nicely and quietly good things will come and you'll be a great person and everyone will love you because you wait so nicely and quietly.

i call bullshit.

what, exactly, do you get in life by waiting? a headache, frustration, the desire to kill. oh wait, that's just me you say? well, i have always had a flair for the dramatic.

i say, patience is a vice.

i can't think of anything i've ever gotten by sitting around waiting and thinking about my virtuousness. this may also be because i'm not a very virtuous person. but still, what justice are we doing to the people we encourage to have patience?

i read in a book once that the average person spends two weeks of their life waiting for red lights to change green.

two weeks of waiting for someone to say go. i could do a million better things in two weeks than wait for a green light.

i will deliberately drive a totally round-about way toward my destination if i know i'll encounter too many traffic lights on the road more traveled. just the thought of sitting there waiting for the light to change gets me tense. and one time on a re-routed return home, i swear, i saw a goat in the middle of the road at 5:30 am in a north jersey suburb. no one believed me, but i promise you, it was there.

there are no traffic lights on that road.

have you seen a goat in the middle of the road at 5:30 am in a north jersey suburb?

or have you sat at a red light cursing the censor that didn't detect your car's presence and refused to let you keep driving?