Talks...

As I grow older I have to admit that I am getting more and more impatient. It could be because the older I get; the less time I have left, but to be honest: I still feel the way I did when I was 20. The end is no closer now than it was then… besides the unexpected happen just as sudden at any time, regardless of young or older age, so I rule that reason out.

Still I think age has something to do with it. Not the number of years, but the experiences I have lived and the patterns I have learned to recognize.

One should think life itself taught me to slow down and be more lenient and indulgent, and in many ways it has: I am less likely to be upset over situations and issues, because I know there’s always a reason to why things occur. People are not unreasonable because they want to act up, just for the sake of it, there’s always a story which gives reasons to seemingly contrary conduct.

So, how come I claim to be more impatient?

Through the years, as far as I see it, problems and issues are more and more dealt with by calling another meeting. Everything has to be discussed and negotiated. The art of designing compromise proposals and solutions have become an oral practice, by that I mean we talk talks, but very seldom put action behind what we said. To be honest I often see that what we agreed upon is not followed through in the heat of the battle; when things happen we seem to react, based on what happened then and there, and our first instinct is what counts. Real life often doesn’t fit theory.

It is a good principle that everybody concerned should be heard. Still, you can’t rely on young age to hold the wisdom responsibilities and experience provide.

I see it every day, as we communicate with youth and also due to the fact I work within a system: Everything seems to be understood as a theme suited for discussion. It is hard to understand and accept that sometimes you get an instruction. People don’t want to take orders: they want to have a say, and they want to do things in their own pace and manner. When something needs to be done within a deadline, both the fact it has to be done and the time limit is difficult to accept.

Way back when I was a teenager, and a student, I can’t remember we ever objected to curriculum or rules and limitations on conduct. We accepted, and trusted, that wiser people than us had taken everything in consideration and worked out the best possible contents and set of rules, in order to make us prepare for the future the best possible way.

My students don’t have that trust. Somewhere along the way, from past to present, things changed and made young people believe they know best. That to make the same mistakes they did before is a good way to lead their lives. The will to change their ways is absent, and this stubborn attitude is rewarded by time set off to talk talks. Talks and time spent on negotiation and to make new deals on how to proceed and have progress.

It is said that smart people learn from their mistakes. I know a man who told me that smart people may learn from their mistakes, but wise people also have the ability to save themselves from both grief and trouble by learning from other people’s mistakes.

My impatience, I think, is based on the insight that so many of us are so preoccupied with ourselves and our own doing that we don’t care about what we can learn from the past and from that adjust in order to become more compatible with society and our fellow-beings (without losing ourselves in the process) and by that save ourselves from hours of meetings with "pointless "talks.