A Lift of Patience

How many of you would choose to wait for one carpark lift that services 22 floors? Or would you widen your choice of taking either one of the other five lifts (at the ground floor) to go up to 22 floors? What does a lift has to do with being patient? In fact, it has. Waiting for a lift tests our patience and  at the same time, we learn to control our anxiety especially when we are running late for a meeting at work.

I know many of us (me included) do not have patience in doing a lot of things. Thus this causes anger to arise easily when things do not turn out the way we want them to be. Sometimes, lack of patience also results in us giving up our dreams.

I was talking to my wife the other day about the lift that had helped trained my level of patience and brought me other benefits. She laughed. Yes, she did not believe me at first but after listening, she became convinced that this lift-patient training paid off than expected.

Well, when I started this patience training, I had never put any thought to how this lift worked. I was just training myself to be more patient. However, the more I waited for the carpark lift every day, the more I learned and realised.

Let me explain what I had learned. The office where I worked was located in a 22-floor building with a basement carpark. There were five lifts that went from the ground floor to every floor. However, there was only one carpark lift that serviced the basement carpark to every floor including the ground floor. 

After parking their cars, many of my colleagues chose to climb up a floor from the basement carpark to the ground floor and waited for more lifts there. My wife also initially thought that this was the fastest way to reach my office during the morning peak hours when there were many office workers waiting to use the lift. 

Well, most of the time, I got into the office first than my other colleagues whom I met at the carpark who chose to use the ground floor lifts. It did not make sense, right? How could this carpark lift reach my office floor quicker than the other five lifts at the ground floor?

Firstly, let us understand how the lift works when it is being called to different floors. Let us assume during the morning peak hours, my colleagues and other office workers waited at the ground floor and I waited at the basement for the lift to go up the building. A carpark lift would definitely go down to the basement first to pick its passengers (that is me) before stopping at the ground floor. Since my colleagues waited at the ground floor, they would not have chosen to wait for the carpark lift that went to the basement first and to the ground floor to pick them. They would definitely hop into any of the other five lifts (whichever came first). The other office workers would also do the same thing like my colleagues. Well, you can imagine seven people or more in the same lift going to different floors. The time taken would be longer as the lift door opened and closed at each floor and people moving out of the lift. All these took time. So, you see that was how I managed to reach my office first than my colleagues about 70% of the time. So my patience paid off.

I had to admit 30% of the time the carpark lift did not come so fast. I once waited for five minutes to use it. However, there were times that the carpark lift opened its door as soon as I pressed the button. So, this attractiveness sort of lured me to continue waiting for this carpark lift every morning.

Secondly, the carpark lift would have lesser traffic as compared to the other lifts. Let us assume an office worker was just using that lift from the basement and going up to whichever floor he wanted when I pressed the lift button and waited at the basement. (I said one office worker in this example because this is the reality. Only those with big baggage would use the carpark lift.) Then, when the lift dropped him at his designated floor, the lift would come straight down to the basement to pick me to go up. Yes, it would be me alone as most people at the ground floor would have hopped into the other five lifts. So, this also explains why this lift is quicker.

Thirdly, I learned to control my anxiety while waiting for the lift. Yes, sometimes I know I would be running late but I just had to wait for this lift. It might sound crazy but I did continue to wait for this lift. So I learned something again here. Of course, it did not happen instantaneously but over a period of time, my anxiety level was lower.

Lastly, the lift of patience had not only increased my level of patience but also reduced my response time to anger. There were times when I felt like scolding the lift for not arriving yet when I was running late. Well, then I realised that there was no point getting angry at a non-living object. I tried to breathe in and out deeply and count the seconds before my temper erupted. Slowly, day by day, the anger was just not there anymore. I guess I had become immune to the pace of the lift.

Well, the next time you have to wait for a lift for a long time, do not let your anger rise. Instead, take this opportunity to train your patience.


Editor's Note:
This article is written based on my husband's experience, thus it is written from his perspective :)