Second rate

Get it? Because my first post on rating was a lame pun. So, obviously, my second post on rating would be a lame word play!! Get it? Huh? Huh?

Fine. I'll move on. Party poopers. Have you noticed how I start some serious posts by being an ass? Yeah, me neither.

In following with my first 152 insights into my soul* I am now looking at the next three qualities a person should strive to have or be or attain or what have you. They are:

Patience
Kindness
Goodness

Patience
Patience is quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence. Uh huh. Sounds just like me, doesn't it? Yeah, not so much. I have patience if I know the end result of my waiting. If I know that waiting in a line will get me to the till eventually and I am in no real panic to go or be anywhere else, I can wait. With patience. For... a long time. While others are fidgeting or huffing or grumbling, I will wait and... just wait. I know the outcome, I can't change the process, I might as well be where I am.

If I do not know the outcome? You may want to move away. Slowly. When I have no control over the outcome or the process and I have no idea what the outcome will be, I am antsy and anxious and nervous and worried and short tempered. And yes, that does mean I am a contradiction wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in bacon. Mmmm. Bacon. Where was I? Right. Patience. I'm gonna give myself a 6. Which is plus 3 points for being patient in traffic, and minus 3 points for wanting the answer to everything that will ever happen in my life so I can just hurry up and relax already.

Kindness
I find human nature so interesting. Maybe that is why I went into Sociology in University. And then transferred to Psych. And back to Sociology. And then to History. And then to English. And finally to Human Justice and Social Work. Because I have the need to know WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING? about humans. I find that for every quality I can list that I have, I also have equal amounts of the exact opposite.

For example, kindness. (Yes, that is where I was going with this.) I would say I am a kind person. Like an 8 out of 10 on the kind person scale. I'm below Mother Theresa and above Howard Stern. I like children and puppies and homeless guys with no teeth. I like babies and kitties and stuff. I do kind things for people because I was raised that way and I think people need it. On the other hand, I am a horribly unkind person. The kind of person who mocks people with really bad hair -- sometimes when they can hear. The kind of person who repeatedly wants to punch people in the throat. So maybe I'm only a 7. Unless you really annoy me and then I will be a 5 without even blinking.

Goodness
Goodness is a tough one. Goodness means moral excellence; virtue or even just being good. It also means "excellence of quality" (same reference). It encompasses not only how you behave, but who you are. The core of who you are. I want to be an 8. You can respect an 8, accept her and think she's a good 8. But she's still got those 2 to make you feel like you don't have to hate her too much. But to break it down into those little sections? I don't think I like that rating.

Me? Moral excellence? Not so much. I mean, I tend not to murder people or commit adultery, but... as for the rest? The "Thou shalt not"s have at times become the "I shalt just this once. Or twice." I want to be a good person. In a lot of ways, I think I am. I want to be good and so that in itself goes a long way toward being good. However, I have a long way to go. But I think that's a good thing (if you will pardon the overuse of the word) because it causes us to look beyond who we are now to who we want to be. We aim for that person and we grow. We deal with the things that cause us to be less than goodness and we move on toward things that are more like goodness. And then, our sister beats us over the head for poor sentence structure. Or at least I think it works like that.


*Sisters, this quote is for you. Answer?