humility

I strive for kindness at all times, but some days I'm in want. My job is an exercise in patience.

When my mind shouts something like, READ THE DIRECTIONS, DAMNIT, in retrospect I always hope my face didn't display my thoughts, even if I feel my rattling nerves are warranted. I hold firmly to the notion that adults should at least try for self sufficiency.

Sundays are busy -- lots of people, lots of questions, and lots of helping lots of people. Thus, today, twenty minutes into my shift, I stopped for a moment to ask for patience...or for the day to go by quickly.

Not long after my appeal for divine intervention, I helped an older gentleman fill out a food stamp account online. I must admit, my patience was wearing thin as I had to help him navigate through the seemingly simple, user-friendly website step by step, repeating and re-explaining things like "zip code," "security question," and "username." Not your 'name', but what you want to use as your log-in name when you use this website....OK fine, you can use your name but you need some numbers in there too. Thirty minutes and three failed attempts at creating a usable username and password later, we finally succeeded. I urged him to write down the website and his account information so that he wouldn't forget...then I thought better and wrote it down for him, explaining the process of getting to the website and logging in once more. He was a kind man, obviously trying to teach himself. I've seen him practice typing during his sessions in the past. He thanked me profusely for my time adding shyly, "I'm so dumb." That made my heart sink. I told him, "No, your not. You're fine. You're learning!" There's patience punched in my face.