The Art of Impatience
[Music]
people that know me best
know that i’m an impatient person you
probably have an idea of who i am now
from that sentence alone you could
assume i’d be the guy
blaring his horn in a line of traffic or
i’d be the person
annoyed at a long line in a store
because for most people impatience is
thought of as a negative trait
for a long time i thought this too but
there are many benefits to impatience
if it wasn’t from patients i wouldn’t
have self-published my first
novel at 10 years old
when i was a little kid i loved stories
i couldn’t help thinking about the
characters and themes
long after i’d finished reading the book
or watching the movie
when i was eight years old in second
grade my
teacher and class had read aloud time
this was one of my favorite parts of the
day i always looked forward to what was
going to happen
next in the story because of this
i decided i wanted to be a storyteller
when i grew up
but then one day i thought well why
can’t i just be one now
so that day i rushed home ready to write
a book
i could barely get through the door
before i started writing
i grabbed a few pieces of paper stapled
them together
and began to write in the end
it turned out like this it’s called
daring boy in the quest for the golden
guy
even though it wasn’t professionally
made i was still proud nonetheless
this was the start of my impatience and
soon enough i would learn
all the benefits of it one day
my mom heard that local writers were
gathering at this bookstore in san
carlos called the reading bug
they were hosting an event for people
like me to come and share their writing
when my mom asked me if i wanted to go i
immediately said yes
what i should have known was that i was
going to be the only kid there
when when the night of the event arrived
the writers sat down in front of an
audience to read their books
the room wasn’t that big but the size of
all the adults made it feel
huge i remember the guy next to me was
reading his poetry
he talked about the moon’s reflections
in a pond and how
shadows danced along the horizon
and then it was my turn and i said
my book’s called daring boy
unlike what i thought no one laughed at
me or anything when i finished
they clap for me just like they did for
everyone else
but something just didn’t sit right with
me i think they only clapped because i
was a cute kid
but i didn’t want to be cute i wanted to
be good
so over the next few years i turned this
into this
it took me till the end of fourth grade
but eventually i turned a few
staple pieces of paper into a 168-page
novel
at the same time my mom and i found out
that you could self-publish books for
free
through amazon through this new
discovery we were able to put my book
and all the ones after on amazon i
remember the day i held my first book in
my hands
words can’t describe how amazing that
feels
and i wouldn’t have held my book that
day if i hadn’t worked hard for it
because i found out that learning to
persevere
is the first benefit of impatience i
help my self-published book that day
because i chose to
i did the work and persevered to get
there
but for me that was only the beginning
a few months later i decided to go into
town and sell my books by the movie
theater
i set up a stand and waited for the
prophets to
roll in
very strangely the prophets didn’t roll
in at all
i made one sale that day and was given
five bucks from some guy
who i’m pretty sure just felt sorry for
me
i don’t know if it was the cardboard
sign that turned people off or what but
no one was buying i sat there all day
and watched as people walked past my
stand and didn’t look over
it was a weird experience but in the end
i knew
i had to be brave another way i tried to
promote my book was by reading in our
school’s library
once a week at my school our class would
go to the library and the librarian
would read us a book
one day i decided to ask her if i could
read
my book to some of her classes amazingly
she said yes so a few days later
with my p teacher’s permission i rushed
out of class and ran over to the library
after about a week i ended up reading my
book to at least eight
classes it was weird at first but
like anything you get used to it after a
while
during these two parts of my life i
learned the second benefit of impatience
i learned how to be brave i always
thought of myself as a talkative person
but
i never thought i could get up in front
of people and do something like this
like most people when i put myself in
front of people i get nervous
they could think i’m a fool they could
think my books are terrible
but it doesn’t matter if you love what
you do
you have to put yourself out there you
have to be brave
so using my newfound bravery i wrote two
more books
i wrote battle in fifth grade and the
wrath of the super bully
at the end of sixth grade just like
daring boy
i continued to read these books in the
library and sell them as well
and it was during this time that i
discovered the third benefit of
impatience
one day a kid’s parent from my school
texted my mom
she said that her son didn’t like to
read
he always avoided it and had trouble
with reading in school
when the mom was coming home from work
one day she found her son
reading on the couch he was reading my
book
daring boy the same book
that ma made a man at a movie theater
feel sorry for me
was the one he chose to read
parents of other kids parents of other
kids told my mom and i similar stories
i never thought i could make an impact
on someone like that
it made me realize that there was a
point to what i was doing after all
it also made me realize that if i was
impatient enough
i could inspire others to do the same
so at the end of seventh grade i wrote
my most recent book to date
this time it was a picture book by the
end of a long week
i wrote and drew all the pictures i also
went back to the library and read it and
sold it as well
but the biggest event i did was go back
to the reading bug
this time they allowed me to have my own
event for family
friends and anyone else to come
when the night of the event came i was
ready
as i sat in my chair i saw people i knew
waiting to hear
from me i felt like the biggest person
in the room
these people weren’t there to hear
poetry from some guy
they weren’t there to hear about an
autobiography written by some other lady
either
they were there for me so after an
employee
introduced me i opened up my book and
read
my book’s called the waiting man i said
my story starts with a man waiting on a
stump
people occasionally walk by him and ask
for his help
but he refuses he’s waiting for an
opportunity
of a lifetime as the story goes on these
people begin to live their lives around
him
they fall in love start families even
create successful businesses
but he doesn’t notice he continues to
wait
and he keeps waiting until finally he
dies
there once was a man a waiting man
waiting but nothing happened
in that moment i had the audience right
there with me
they cared about what i was saying and
when they clapped for me at the end
they didn’t clap because i was a cute
kid they clapped
because i was good impatience was the
reason i read my book that day
it taught me how to persevere how to be
brave
and it even gave me a chance to touch
other people’s lives
so that’s why i’m impatient that’s why i
wanted to be here as a freshman to tell
you my story
so that maybe you can decide to be
impatient too
thank you