Patience... It's a virtue.

Whenever my impatient boyfriend is being particularly impatient, I like to remind him that patience is indeed a virtue and one that he might like to work on a bit. Generally, this does not receive a response that is what you would call open to the suggestion. But it doesn't tend to lead to an argument either as he knows me well enough to know that it is a virtue I wish I had.

I am not, shall we say, overly blessed with patience.

And judging by the people I know who are also in their twenties, and some in their thirties, I suspect it may be a generational issue.

There was Generation X, followed by Generation Y, there has also been the MTV generation which I'll come back to but now we have what I call the iGeneration. A play on the prevalence of apple's branding style whilst also highlighting the self-centred aspect of young citizens.

Perhaps I am being a little harsh on my generation. After all, I gained my current job through volunteering, as did my teenage coworker. I care about other people and global issues; so if I do, surely there are others who do too?

So, the MTV generation (as I understand the theory anway) are so called because having watched MTV videos, people became used to flashing lights and absorbing information that was up on the screen in shorter and shorter times. Add in video games and subliminal messaging through embedding split-seconds of images within movies or adverts so that we aren't even aware we've seen the image but somehow our brains register it; our brains are working faster than we ever imagined.

We live in a society that has grown up with this, with broadband internet and fastfood restaurants. We have power tools to take the work out of DIY and cars to speed from home to work, from meeting to meeting, from work to home without losing time on travelling. We can pay someone to fix those cars or clean our houses or tend our gardens, or maybe just once in a while deliver our dinner to our doors.

We try to fit so many things into our modern lives; we can have it all, career, family, friends, hobbies, studying, holidays. And there's no reason at all why we shouldn't do it all, there are endless possibilities for us to make the most of. So where's the problem? In a world where everything is built for convenience and speed, time has become a luxury.

Time, for me at least, is the reason I can't do all the things I want to do, read all the books I want to read or do all the hobbies I want to; the reason I can't work on all the skills I want to improve or learn.

So is it any wonder that young people seem to be more and more impatient the younger they get? Sure, it takes time to learn to be patient; it's a skill children often have difficulty mastering, but I'm not so sure that we really try to learn patience anymore.

Before I even turned 18, I had several banks sending me offers for credit cards and loans. The attitude of 'buy it now, pay later' is incredibly prevalent in our society and with relaxing morals surrounding borrowing because let's face it, there are things normal (read: working/middle class) people simply cannot do without borrowing such as going to university or buying a house, there isn't much of a case for why you should wait to buy that pair of shoes/car/computer/expensive outfit.

So, as we become more and more used to everything pandering to our convenience, pausing live TV, websites making things available 24 hours a day, getting things when we want them whether we can afford them or not; how can we expect this not to have a knock-on effect on the rest of our lives?

For me, this is a particular problem as I am in a long-distance relationship. After five years together, the last two of which we have lived in different towns, I am getting rather impatient. I don't want to have to wait to see him, I don't want to have to save all the tiny things that I want to tell him until both of us have dealt with the day-to-day bits of our lives and can actually talk to each other.

Half the time we do speak, we don't have a proper conversation, just a flying 'hello, how are you doing, what have you been up to, love you' as we rush from errand to chore or work to home. We have to make the time to have a real chat and bond; which is, I imagine how it works for everyone around the world in any relationship.

But I know for a fact it is much easier to have discussions about touchy subjects or to find five minutes here for a chat, half an hour there to chill out on the sofa together, to just be together, when living near each other. When you love someone you just want to be with them and conducting a long-distance relationship flies directly in the face of this. Does the fact that we have maintained our relationship mean that I have learned patience? Or does it mean that we care about each other and have therefore put in the work to make time and be understanding of each other? I don't think I'm more patient, just that I've accepted that you can't always have everything in life, let alone when you want it. Which, of course, I always knew; I just have yet more experience of living with it.

So when my boyfriend is being impatient, I shall continue to remind him that patience is a virtue. And I'll remind myself every now and again too...

Home is where the heart is?

Last week, whilst visiting family in Edinburgh, I found myself musing on the defining characteristics of Scottishness, on what it means to be Scottish and where the line is drawn on what is or isn't Scottish; especially after my uncle revealed that haggis was originally an English dish way back when.

As the daughter of English parents with a Welsh grandmother, a Scottish grandfather and an Irish great-grandfather, this is a subject that has recurred throughout my life. Proud of my Celtic heritage, I collected pieces of our tartan and guarded them from lil sis who couldn't have cared less. Despite ridicule from my friends, I knew it was important to me.

This all opens up a much larger question on nationality. Does it matter more where you were born or where you were raised, or even who you were raised by? I know I have a much stronger connection to place I grew up in from the age of 6 than to were I was born and can't remember.

Is your true father your genetic ancestor, your 'sperm donor' as a friend calls hers, or the man who raised you? Mine are the same man but I still feel that parenthood is defined not by genetics but by sleepless nights and holding tiny hands, by drying tears and kissing bumps and bruises better. Love, in essence, is what defines that relationship; being there for you and experiencing your life. By that merit, my hometown is definitely where I grew up.

And just like the relationship in families, no one sees the very best qualities of your home as well as you do, but no one else sees its flaws as clearly either. The protective streak that flares should anyone else mention these flaws proves just how close to our hearts these connections are, whether we profess to loathe these places or not. It smacks of that sibling relationship; I am allowed to pick on lil sis but no one else can or they'll have me to answer to.

Having had such an overt interest in my Celtic heritage, I took England for granted. Other than pride in Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Princess Diana, I barely noticed that I was English until I left. When I set off to backpack around New Zealand at the grand old age of 18, I was a confirmed coffee lover. A Starbucks fan with a hotmail address that confirmed my coffee addiction to all, I had no time for tea, that quaint beverage that old people drink. I was young, part of the iGeneration and I found tea dull in comparison with strong, sultry coffee and all the sugar-laced offerings of Starbucks and co. Until I arrived in New Zealand, began missing home, bonding instantly with any other English people I met no matter how diverse our background and started drinking tea. I embraced the English stereotype because it reminded me of my mum and dad and their many many cups of tea a day. It wasn't even until I returned and I was staggered by English trees that I realised just how much I had missed English trees.

Likewise, when I later attended university and befriended an adorable and minute young Pakistani girl, she developed a taste for spices far beyond the level she had cared for back home. She might as well have included lighter fuel in her cooking so inedible it was to me. And as if poisoning me wasn't enough, she didn't lay off the potency of spices until she'd given herself gastroenteritis.

I rediscovered my love for coffee but even to this day, I drink hot, sweet tea after a particularly hard day or whenever I need a little comforting. And if I miss my best friend? Out come the spices; minus the lighter fuel though...