I remember when I was about 12 or so, my family and I went camping in the Badlands, South Dakota. It was my first time camping and I had a lot of fun, and my favorite part was looking at the stars; you could see everything so clearly in the night sky without all the light pollution of a big city. I remember my sister and mom kept seeing shooting stars, and I had never seen one before so I really wanted to. Every time one of them would yell, “look a shooting star!”, it would already be gone by the time I looked. After a while everyone went to bed, but my mom said she’d stay up with me until I saw one. My eyes would dart around the night sky trying to spot any movement anywhere, but to no avail. She then told me, “the trick is to only look in one spot, you’ll see one eventually”. Within 5 minutes, I ended up seeing so many I lost count.
This was a valuable lesson in patience; sometimes the most effective way to reach your goals is to stop and focus. Staying consistent will usually have successful results, even if it’s boring or not the way you thought would be the best. I actually got to remind my mom of this lesson recently when we took a road trip to North Carolina. I always like to see if I can spot deer in the woods we drive by on the highway, so I ended up staring out the window for an hour or two and saw about 5 deer. I’d call out “deer!” every time I saw one, and my mom would quickly look over and try to see also. After not being able to see the first couple ones I did, she was sad that she couldn’t find any. But I reminded her that I was solely only looking out the window for a couple hours so I was bound to see some eventually, and she was busy being the copilot to my dad driving so she couldn’t look out the window for long periods of time like me. Later on, when we were on a longer stretch of road and my dad didn’t need her to help him as much, I caught her staring out the window waiting to see a deer herself.
Remember, patience is key for reaching your goals! Whether they are small like seeing a wild animal or shooting star, or even bigger like reaching your dream career, a little patience will go a long way.
