Skip to main content

Patience: the Only First-Class Ticket

In this episode, Patience: the Only First-Class Ticket

They say travel broadens the mind.

After eight days sailing the Rhône with 140 fellow luxury vacationers, I can confirm it also tests patience, calf strength, buffet strategy, and one's tolerance for people furious that France insists on being French.

Don't get me wrong—I adored this trip. The river shimmered like liquid optimism. The villages looked hand-painted. The pastries could negotiate world peace.
But somewhere between Ship Horn Hello and Bon Voyage, we'd inadvertently boarded a floating behavioral research study disguised as a holiday. Our ship was less a cruise and more a ferry for the Sailors of Status.
Some passengers approached relaxation like yogis. Others treated leisure like a final exam with extra credit. I came to believe certain luxury watches emit ultrasonic signals that only their owners can detect. A frequency calibrated to trigger rapid movement toward any line forming for any reason. I saw more Rolex watches in a week than I've seen all year.

"The doors to dinner will open in 10 minutes . . ."

WHOOSH!

They were off—charging toward tranquility at competitive speeds, their $25,000 chronographs precisely measuring how quickly they could unwind. The great irony is that these travelers, who can afford to take time off and explore the world, seem to have the least amount of time to spare.

Friends, the buffet was not a meal. It was a pilgrimage with priority seating rules, advancing tactics, and emotional stakes.

You haven't truly lived until you've witnessed a grown adult execute a geopolitical negotiation over the final pain au chocolat.

Somewhere onboard, I'm convinced there was a spreadsheet ranking passengers by their strategic napkin deployment and pastry acquisition efficiency. This wasn't luxury dining; it was a competition of scarcity.

Then came the excursions—beautiful small towns where geraniums tumble from window boxes and church bells provide the soundtrack. Everything was perfect until the announcements began.

In French. In France. Nonetheless. . . 

The indignation was swift and genuine.

"Why can't they speak English?" someone sighed, tapping their foot aggressively in loafers.

Another passenger, arms crossed, whispered the rallying cry of international tourism: "It would be so much more authentic . . . if I could understand it."

I realized then: we hadn't come to France to immerse ourselves in French culture. Many had come to test whether France would perform for them.

Here's the thing about (luxury) this kind of travel:

You can sprint for the first seat on the bus, or you can stroll on later and enjoy the fresh air. You can race to the front of every experience, or you can drift in gently and actually experience it.

Because after the elbows retract, the lines dissolve, and the watch-face glow subsides, the truth remains:

  • The view is the same.
  • The croissant tastes identical.
  • And French will continue to be spoken aggressively well in France.

Luxury is not measured in proximity to the front; it is measured in distance from the frenzy.

Next time, I'll be easy to spot: I'll board after the Bus Access Olympic qualifiers conclude. I'll smile at the hustle and bustle, then stroll the other direction.

I'll remember that travel isn't a checkpoint—it's a souvenir you carry quietly in your bones because the greatest upgrade available on any itinerary is not priority seating. It's patience.

First-class, fully rechargeable, and—unfortunately for some—not sold in boutiques.

I'm Patrick Ball. Stay curious, ask questions. It's Great to be home!

Labels:

Comments

Don Hanley said…
Patrick - this is delightful - thank you - reminds me of Patty C.
November 10, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

When Fear Becomes the Default

In this special episode, When Fear Becomes the Default. Early Sunday morning, I was cycling past a small veterans’ pocket park in San Marcos. The air was still, the streets nearly empty. On one corner stood a young woman, alone, holding a hand-painted sign that read: “Be ANGRY. ICE agents are murdering people.” I pedaled past, but the words stayed with me. I knew the context—the footage and headlines from Minneapolis the day before, already ricocheting through the country and hardening opinions. Even in the quiet of the ride, the noise followed. Two miles later, I stopped at a red light. A black car with dark windows pulled up inches from my bike. My heart jumped. My first instinct wasn’t neighbor —it was threat . I found myself bracing, scanning, and wondering if the person inside was angry, armed, or looking for trouble. Then the door opened. A well-dressed young woman stepped out, walked to the trunk, and pulled out a sign that read “Open House.” She turned, smiled brightly, and sa...
2 comments
Read more

Boy on a Beam

In this special bonus episode, Boy on a Beam. In a world long ago, when the days moved quite slow, Before buzzes and beeps and the fast things we know, A boy sat quite still on a very fine day, Just staring at nothing . . . and thinking away. No tablets! No gadgets! No screens shining bright! No earbuds stuck in from morning till night. No lists, no charts, and no chores to be done. He just sat there thinking—that's quiet-time fun! His name was Young Albert. He sat in his chair, Thinking of things that weren’t really there. “Suppose,” said Young Albert, with eyes open wide, “I ran super fast with my arms by my side! Suppose I ran faster than anyone knew, And caught up to sunshine that zoomed past me—too! If I hopped on its back for a light-speedy ride, What secrets would I find tucked away deep inside?” “Would stars look like sprinkles, all shiny and small? Would UP feel like sideways? Would BIG feel like Tall?” He giggled and wondered and thought, and he dreamed, Till his head fel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sweden Called . . . They Said No.

Have you ever wondered about  the Nobel Prize? Let's look at Where Genius Meets “Wait—Where’s My Medal?” Every October, the Nobel Prizes are announced, and humanity pauses to celebrate the "greatest benefit to mankind." And every year, like clockwork, a specific type of person appears online to complain—at length—that they were robbed. (Well, maybe this year more than most.) The Origin: A Legacy of Guilt The prize exists because Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor, had a crisis of conscience. Nobel held 355 patents, but he was most famous for inventing dynamite. When a French newspaper mistakenly published his obituary, calling him the " Merchant of Death, " he decided to buy a better legacy. In his 1895 will, he left the bulk of his massive fortune to establish five prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace). Because he was Swedish, he entrusted the selection to Swedish institutions, such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The only outlier...
1 comment
Read more

The Thought Experiment–Revisited

In this episode. The Thought Experiment–Revisited The Boy on a Light Beam In 1895, a sixteen-year-old boy did something we rarely allow ourselves to do anymore. He stared into space and let his mind wander. No phone. No notes. No “Optimization Hacks” for his morning routine. Just a question: What would happen if I chased a beam of light—and actually caught it? That boy was Albert Einstein . And that single act of curiosity—a Gedankenexperiment , a thought experiment—eventually cracked open Newton’s tidy universe and rearranged our understanding of time itself. Not bad for an afternoon of daydreaming. Imagine if Einstein had been “productive” instead. He would have logged the light-beam idea into a Notion database, tagged it #CareerGrowth, and then promptly ignored it to attend a forty-five-minute “Sync” about the color of the departmental logo. He’d have a high Efficiency Score—and we’d still be stuck in a Newtonian universe , wondering why the Wi-Fi is slow. In a post I wrote back in...
2 comments
Read more