Wrestling Wednesday: Wrestling with Impatience

My impatience is a problem with which I’ve been wrestling for most my life. I’ve always hated waiting—waiting in line, waiting for other people, waiting for service. But only now have I actually attempted to do something about my impatience. I think that’s because I’ve realized impatience to be a trait resulting from entitlement. As a white male, I’ve grown accustomed to getting things in a timely fashion, or even making things happen with little resistance. 

I once tried to legalize cannabis in Montana four years before it was actually legalized. This is how that went: 1) I called the Marijuana Policy Project, a national organization working to change marijuana policies in the United States, 2) I asked the head of the MPP if they intended to attempt a legalization campaign in Montana, 3) he said, “No,” 4) I said, “Well, then I’m going to,” 5) he said “go for it,” and 6) I wrote the legislation and submitted it to the Secretary of State. I managed to grow that ballot issue organization to over 2,000 members and 100 volunteers without spending a dime on marketing. We failed to collect the necessary signatures to get my legislation on the ballot, but I created a network of volunteers and donors and proved there was real support for the movement in Montana. That alone made Montana attractive enough for out-of-state donors to pass similar legislation four years later. 

When I started riding my bike a lot more in my hometown, I noticed a severe lack of bike racks to which I could lock up my bike. At a city council meeting I was covering for the newspaper, the police chief even mentioned the lack of bike racks being a reason for bike thefts in one of the city’s parks. So I called the head of the community college welding department and asked if he had any interest in his students crafting artistic bike racks to be placed in the city’s parks. He said he did, so I called the recycling center to see if they would donate some materials. They said they would. Then I took this plan to the city council, and in just a couple of weeks, they approved the plan and provided funding for any materials not provided by the recycling center. A few months later they unveiled and dedicated a bike rack shaped as a locomotive to the “Depot Park” on the city’s main street.

One day after mowing the lawn, I noticed my neighbor, John Hasse, filling the potholes of our street with hot mix. My father and I immediately grabbed rakes and started helping, smoothing out the hot mix so John could move on down the street. John wasn’t about to wait for the county voters to approve road work, and since he drove some of the biggest vehicles on the street, he probably felt a sense of responsibility for repairing it. John has long since passed away, but our street remains the nicest to drive in the subdivision thanks to his sense of responsibility and can-do attitude.

Where I’m from, you did shit yourself or it didn’t get done. But where I now reside, people take offense to a “can-do” attitude. It makes them feel like they “can’t do,” and, frankly, it should.

When I joined Minnesota NORML, a state chapter of a national organization working to reform marijuana laws, I immediately started planning and executing an event to help the organization achieve its goals. Then I received almost no support. The materials I had hoped to handout and sell were locked in a storage unit to which no one had the key. Apparently the one person with the key was out of town on national NORML business. All I heard, however, was the voices in my head screaming, “What terrible organization!” and, “Who’s leading this operation?” I later discovered that the leader of the organization was profiting from the sale of his own merchandise at the expense of and thanks to the organization. “Well, that’s the only way we can afford to pay him,” I was told by a longtime board member. That board member also wanted to rent an office with what little money the organization didn’t have to pay the executive director.

I loudly criticized the organization’s lack of organization and lack of leadership in the next meeting, stating that I couldn’t see myself supporting it unless I could run it, which I offered to do for free. Despite my experience having done just that in Montana, I received very little support, and cannabis remains illegal in the state. The medical marijuana law, which was the worst in the country, is slightly better than it was, though. Patients can finally purchase flower now, which has been banned since the legislation passed in 2014.

I’m not used to dealing with passive aggressive people, and Minnesota is full of them. I come from a long line of aggressive people, and have been surrounded by aggressive people most my life. I prefer everyone else be as aggressive as me. You’re not going to hurt my feelings, but you will piss me off by wasting my time. I guess I just have to be like Orange Cassidy and care less. But habits are hard to break, and impatience will probably be the hardest habit for me to break.

I mentioned that I’m finally doing something to address my problem with impatience. I’m reading Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’ve had a helluva time making friends since moving to Minnesota five years ago. In fact, I’ve made exactly one new friend. I had another, but our personalities didn’t jive, making life worse for both of us, so I took Mark Manson’s advice and cut ties with that toxic relationship. My only new friend made in Minnesota was made thanks to me trying to be more like Orange Cassidy.

We were scheduled to play a tennis match, and it was my first opportunity to try my new Bluetooth headphones on the court. It was also another opportunity to employ my new mantra: “Freshly Squeezed.” Before I hit a serve, I’d say to myself, “Freshly squeezed,” meaning “less is more, and wider is better.” For those non-tennis players reading this, it served as a constant reminder that my second serve was good enough to beat anybody if I put it where I wanted it to go. My opponent said as much early in the match. “I think your second serve was faster than your first in that game,” he told me. “They’re all second serves,” I replied. “I’ve been hitting only second serves until I can’t miss with them.”

Despite losing in a third set, it was an absolute pleasure playing this opponent, and it wasn’t because he was so complimentary. It was because of my mindset and the soundtrack playing in my mind. I was dancing and singing to Chaka Khan the entire match, which kept smiles on both our faces. I’ve played him twice more, losing every time, yet enjoying my time on the court. That’s how Orange Cassidy wins even when he loses. He wins over the crowd by being more entertaining and less aggressive than his opponents. So now that I’ve found an effective mantra on the court, it’s time I employ it off the court.

From now on, everytime I sense my impatience boiling over because of the incompetencies of others, I’ll say to myself, “Freshly squeezed.” It’s just a friendly reminder that none of this matters, and allowing impatience to dictate your reactions to shit that doesn’t matter is just as incompetent as the incompetencies of others triggering those impatient reactions. While the Montanan in me hates that I have to be more entertaining and less aggressive in order to endear myself to Minnesotans, Dale Carnegie and Orange Cassidy both prove it’s more effective than being a real heel.