2 Very Important Things On Im/Patience That I Learned From Malaysia

• Tweet
• Share
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Share

There’s a lot to be said about a city where the best thing about it is that you can leave it. This is Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It’s a hub for all airplane traffic so when you’re sick of being ripped off in KL you can fly to another part of Asia and get ripped off there.

But my year and a half in KL has taught me a lot about the importance of patience and impatience. Mainly these 2 things.

1. Patience is a virtue.

Everything moves at the speed of the Obama administration. So there’s no point getting angry and frustrated over things which you have no control over.

Example being the taxis. Sometimes they feel like working, sometimes they don’t feel like working. But it’s not their fault. Everybody is entitled to tea time and slacking off at work. So I learned to be patient, to smile, and get over things. Eventually the end result will happen but in the mean time just grin and bear it. It’s much to hot in KL already.

And another thing. When you lose our patience, the next logical step is losing your sanity. Slippery slope.

2. Patience will get you no where.

Taxis and patience go hand in hand the way loner cat people and the internet go together. But when you want shit done sometimes, patience will only make you look like the fool at the end of the bar trying to get a drink without raising his voice.

Case in point. I wanted to fix my internet because here the interwebz is a luxury similar to that of having a virgin slave rub your feet. While Singapore enjoys a minimum of 11 mb/s, you have to pay extra in KL just to get 5 mb/s. And while the government hypocrisy in Malaysia is fairly consistent, the internet here is not. Like the taxi drivers, sometimes it wants to work and other times it’s taking a break.

Well, for the last 2 weeks my internet decided to stop working. It took me 2 weeks to get the telcom people to send someone over. How did I manage to get them to fix my internet? By being impatient. I basically called their company useless amongst other things. Oops. My Canadian tendencies are slipping away from me.

If I hadn’t acted impatient with the internet gods that be, I’d still be waiting around for a technician. Lesson learned. Don’t wait for the buggers to call back, just call them yourself. And don’t forget to ask for their supervisor’s name, supervisor’s supervisor’s name, etc.

So when do you choose to be patient versus impatient?

Be patient when:

• Eating – this’ll teach you to enjoy food more and savour the art of slow food. If you let slow service slide you’ll enjoy better digestion too.
• Dealing with taxis – there’ll always be a taxi around the corner and trust me, you dont want to bully a taxi driver into driving you unless you want to end up on the side of a highway walking back home.
• Using the internet – I didn’t say getting the internet, I said using it. Remember the old days of dial up and how annoying it was to watch porn? Well enjoy the slow internet because now you won’t watch as much porn and will probably go outside and socialize.
• Traffic – if you’re in a taxi, it’s nap time. If you’re driving, this is where you learn to sing your favorite songs.

Be impatient when:

• Getting your internet fixed. It’s not fair you’re paying for a non-existent service. And in a country where the internet provider has a monopoly, they really don’t care about keeping you as a customer.
• Dealing with men – Okay, this is just me being a feminazi bitch. My bad. But on the hand if he ain’t R-E-S-P-E-C-T-ing you, then drop him like it’s hot.
• Progressing your career – Suck it up, do the work, execute like King Henry VIII, and don’t wait for someone to give you your dream job on a silver platter.
• You feel a lump that shouldn’t be there – Common sense.