Be Patient and Proactive

Patience and proactivity.  Can they go hand in hand?  I asked myself this very question as I was waiting for my plane to take off from Chicago recently.  First the plane was delayed getting to the airport.  Then, after we boarded, there were mechanical problems, which required us to wait on board in a hot plane for about 45 minutes before takeoff.  It was pretty miserable.

Fortunately, I had a long layover in Seattle, so I wasn’t worried about missing my flight.  Usually that’s not the case though.  I try to keep my layovers under two hours.  So I asked myself, what would I have done, had I needed to catch an earlier flight out of Seattle?

I probably would have checked with Alaska airlines, to see if they had a later flight going to Medford, and I would have called the airline from the waiting plane, to see if I could switch to the later flight.  If my flight were the last out of Seattle, I would have inquired about lodging for the night and an early flight the next morning.  I would have been proactive.

Tempting as it was to yell and scream, I didn’t.  Much anyway.  I will admit to Twittering a bit about my conundrum, but I realized that whining would not have made much of a difference.  Hard as it was, I forced myself to be patient.

Here’s another very personal example from my life.  This is probably where I learned to be proactive and patient at the same time, though I failed at the patience part a lot.

When my husband and I first got married, we decided to have children right away.  Except that the kids didn’t come.  We tried for a year, before I went to the doctor, who prescribed fertility drugs.  Being proactive, I took the drugs.  Unfortunately, I still didn’t get pregnant right away.

I cried.  I screamed.  I got mad at God.  I wanted things my way, and I wanted a child right then.  Like a spoiled kid, I demanded my way.  That was not a great example of patience.

In time, we got pregnant with our daughter.  She has been a total blessing in our lives, and looking back, I wouldn’t have timed things any differently.

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn the lesson about patience, and I went through the same thing when we tried for our son.  This time it was worse, because we had to try for 3 years before I got pregnant.  But again, the timing was perfect for us, and I wouldn’t have my children spaced any differently.

The same thing applies to our budget.  My husband and I had wanted to buy a house from the time we married, 14 years ago.  We could have bought one right away, but we would have ended up in foreclosure, because financially we just weren’t ready.

We could have cried that life isn’t fair, because all of our friends were buying houses, and we couldn’t.  But what would that have helped?  We needed to be patient.

But we also needed to be proactive.  In our years of waiting, I did a lot of research.  I researched mortgages, PMI, taxes, and everything else that goes into buying a house.  Even though we weren’t financially ready to take the plunge, I wanted to have the knowledge I needed, so I’d be prepared when the finances were in place.

When we were ready, and we saw the house we wanted, we were ready to move. None of the real estate terms confused me.  None of the fees that go into buying a house surprised me.  Our home buying process was relatively seamless, because I had been proactive about doing the research.

Patience is important.  Without patience, at best, you put yourself in a bitter state of mind.  At worst, you make big financial mistakes that can have a negative effect on your life for a long period of time.

Proactivity is also important.  Knowledge is power, and I’ve always believed it best to be prepared, as they say in the Boy Scouts. If you’re prepared with knowledge, when opportunities come along, and big decisions need to be made, you can make them quickly, effectively, and confidently.

So what happened with my flight?  Well, we got in the air, I got to Seattle, I made my connection, and I arrived home that night.

What happened with the infertility?  Well, I was a bitter person for a while.  I was a sad person for a while.  But eventually I learned to be patient, and I accepted the family God gave me on his timeline, rather than mine.  Though at first it was hard to accept that I didn’t have several kids closely spaced, today I am happy with the family I have, and it feels complete.

And with the house?  Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that last year we were able to buy a house in the country after having rented for several years.  We’re happy where we live, and we feel comfortable with our mortgage.

What about you?  Are you patient?  Proactive?  Both?