Learning Patience & Perseverence

The need for patience has been a recurring theme in my life lately.  The release of Glimmerings has been delayed once again.  In fact several deadlines have come and gone and we are still waiting to share it with you.  In December, we sent the CD discs to be duplicated.  That process went very smoothly so I was hopeful the project would be completed by my first deadline – beginning of January! The issues began at the second factory where the cover and CD jacket had to be laminated and pressed.  Apparently a special glue is required to make sure the plastic (that holds the CD disc) sticks firmly without running on the CD jacket.  Because we want a glossy cover, the factory was having additional challenges finding the particular glue that would work without making a huge mess!  The factory tried several kinds of glue and each one either failed to stick or looked appalling!  They are still working on it…
Another issue with the printing of the CD jacket was the paper warping (It is made from thick paper, not the old plastic CD cases) and no matter what the factory did, they couldn’t resolve it.  So they decided to start afresh and make a second printing of all the covers to see if they could fix the problem.  By now we had missed the second deadline – January 10 – and with the onset of Chinese New Year, I knew we would have to wait an extra month or more as most (if not all) factories go on holiday at this time of year – the biggest holiday in China!  I was disappointed at first especially since I had my heart set on sharing the CDs with friends and family by a certain date.  But what helped was knowing that I couldn’t control the situation (patience & detachment). It was out of my hands and deep down I knew it would all work out in its own time (faith)!  I had made a decision and had chosen a certain company to work on manufacturing it and couldn’t pull out in the middle (loyalty).  What also helped was realizing that there wasn’t anything magical about the date, January 10 (flexibility)!
So now a month later, factories are starting to open and the workers are experimenting with the glue once again.  We may have to change the gloss lamination to a matt one instead to resolve some of the issues.  I have managed to stay calm throughout the process and not to blame anyone for the challenges with the details of putting all the pieces together.  It has been a long ‘labour’ (perseverance) but well worth it as I wait expectantly to hold ‘Glimmerings’ in my hands!  Looking forward to sharing some good news about its release very soon…