Copyright 2005 Anne AlexanderI don’t know about you, but patience is not my strong suit. In most situations, I want to move forward in action. A few weekends ago I had an amazing experience that powerfully drove home to me, once again, value of patience, especially when it comes to finding creative and effective solutions to our problems.
The beautiful wood lot next door to our house was recently cleared to put up two more homes. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later. On window that faces lot, we had a beautiful stained glass piece, however, window showed through about 8” on either side.
Now, with lot cleared, every time I went by window, instead of beautiful greenery, I noticed raw earth, scraped by bulldozer. It made me cringe every time. I am a big believer in tremendous benefit of setting up our environment to support us. This includes all kinds of environments, like clients, friends, beliefs, food, etc. But in this case it was my physical/ social environment.
We had to do something to change that view out window. I came up with idea of a lightweight translucent plastic roller shade that would go behind stained glass. Definitely tacky, but I was adamant I did not want to see construction for next six months or look into someone else’s window for years after that.
Although this idea wasn’t greatest, I didn’t see any other option and my perspective, as an impatient, action-oriented person was “Let’s just put up shade.”
Fellow “action” friends take note: sometimes action can be premature.
So what happened? We started tossing ideas around - an attractive Japanese paper shade of some kind, plastic film you stick on windows in bathrooms for privacy that still lets light through, even spray-on coatings.