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