Need for control?

It's funny the things you discover about yourself while doing the simplest of tasks....like making toast.

This morning as I was pondering life's greatest questions my sandwich thin slipped between the bars and started to burn/smoke as it touched the hot wires that are suppose to toast it. I angrily poked at it until I got it out and then was sort of grumbling to myself when a co-worker approached. We laughed about it and we started talking about how things were built better when we were younger and that led into this weird thought pattern.

I said I've become so much less patient as I've gotten older. It's like I feel like I don't have a lot of time left to deal with the indecisiveness of others or the thoughtlessness that seems to be all around me. For instance, in the morning, I walk into the cafeteria to get my coffee and there is a flow, a process to getting your coffee...you start on the right, pick up your cup and then proceed through to choose your coffee, fill your cup, add creamer and finally the top. It's a very clear, simple process that any fool can see....but there is the occasional yahoo who is so completely self-absorbed in their own bubble that they walk right up to the counter, past me, put their tray full of food down and then try to reach over you to grab a cup and I am suppose to just stand there and let this happen?

So the older I get the less patience I have for these kinds of acts. My co-worker said he's less tolerant than patient. Is there a difference between tolerance and patience? It made me think more. Honestly...this much thinking before coffee is not good for anyone.

Tolerance - capacity to endure pain or hardship. Sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices, the allowable deviation from a standard. Patient - bearing pains or trials or without complaint, not hasty or impetuous. Manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain.

So maybe I've been thinking about myself wrong. I am NOT patient. I thought I was, but I think if anything I have a high tolerance level but I'm not really tolerant either. Hmmm, have I turned into that grumpy gus of an old woman already?

I used to be the kind of person that enjoyed being right. Not that I would argue it, okay, maybe that's not true, but I learned to sort of hone it....I started to become one who then had to PROVE I was right. Hmm, maybe that's slightly passive/aggressive. Jesh, the more I think about this and write about this, I am a hot mess.

Does it all come down to our need for control? I don't seem to be able to control much in my life so maybe it's my unconscious attempt at gaining control - if I get to do things my way or in my time then I win....is it about winning? Is this only the tip of the iceberg?

I am not sure I want to live in a world where I am in total control. It's clear I don't make the best decisions on my own, I always like/need input/feedback. Even if people don't think I do. I try to take it in, listen to it, process it and then make a decision. When I was younger, I admit, I made my decisions based on my friends wants/needs, but as I get older, I now am trying to make these based on what's best for me. Imagine that.....I am thinking of me first.

Ohh boy, this all started with an innocent piece of toast. Imagine where I could have gone had I added an egg or pancake to this start to my day?