By Kip Aoki, Star-Bulletin

Don’t have a cow,
learn patience now

Are you one of those who heads for the exits at Aloha Stadium before the end of a football game to beat the traffic out of the parking lot?

Do you grumble and tap your fingers during the 30 seconds it takes for the microwave to zap your tea? Or sit fuming at the computer waiting for what seems like an eternity for your favorite Web site to appear?

'Fess up. When it comes to patience, you've lost it. But you're not alone.

As a virtue, patience seems to have gone the way of eight-track tape players, vinyl albums and monogamy in the military.

"We have learned to treat life like it's an emergency," says Richard Carlson, a stress consultant and author of the best-selling book "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff . . . and it's all small stuff."

"We're all going somewhere very quickly, but where?" Carlson finds it almost comical that people go ballistic when they have to wait a few minutes to get meals at fast-food restaurants.

"We have developed this belief in the age of technology that we shouldn't have to ever wait at the post office or sit in traffic," he says. "As a culture, we've lost perspective."

Indeed, the abundance of computers, fax machines, e-mail and car phones has led much of the American public to believe they have an inalienable right never to wait for anything.

Experts also cite the downsizing of companies, which has given remaining workers more to do in the same amount of time, and the rise of busy two-career couples and single-parent families as factors leading to an overall climate of less patience.

The rewards of patience are great, says Carlson. "When a person becomes more patient, his or her life is so much calmer," he says.