On patience and bus stops

Waiting is not for everyone. I'm good at it, though. Brilliant, if I may say so myself. I've practiced. I'm particularly good at waiting for public transports. Such as waiting for trains. Or buses.

Patience, states The Mirror (Saturday 19, 1825), is the art of waiting. That's true, for sure. But then the editor continues: Time passes quickly with him who hopes for days and lives for the morrow. Hope has such efficacy that it can lead us to the end of life through an agreeable path and even beyond life itself. Interesting concept. The hopeful ones are those who believe that the bus will come and pick them up before they die. Or least such that they arrive home before dinner.

I think that the The Mirror is wrong. Patience comes from the erroneous conviction that time spent waiting is an investment or an asset of some kind. The really patient person is the one who after waiting for (say) a quarter of an hour, dismisses the option to take a cab or walk, because he feels that he will then somehow loose the time he'd investmented in waiting. You've heard it, haven't you: Let's wait five minutes more.

Mind you, it's even worse than that, since it takes just twenty minutes to walk.