A couple of months ago, a friend asked me to write about patience. Why? His patience was pushed to the limit when he was trying to do an urgent online transaction over the internet but failed to do so after many repeated attempts and an entire day was wasted with no results. 

I did not think much about it until last week when my patience was also being tested and it really got me thinking. My reaction to the situation was not the most elegant and in fact, some undesirable behaviors of annoyance and blame started showing up. I am usually quite patient, so I thought, and I actually felt really bad for losing my cool when I was under tremendous time pressure.

Patience is often thought of as a virtue…our capacity to accept and tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious requires a calm mind and a gentle heart. Well, theory is always easy but putting it into practice is extremely difficult and frustrating. 

Patience is much easier, even pleasant, to exercise if one truly understands that it can and does deliver much better outcomes, not just for ourselves but for others too. It does take a lot of patience to learn to be patient.

• Was talking to my niece about learning Yoga. She is in a more advanced stage than myself and she shared her initial pain going into the advanced class. It was difficult, painful and progress was too slow. It would have been easier to avoid it and just enjoy her basic class. But she knew she would never ever make progress if she continues to avoid it. So she decided to self pace her learning and accept the slow progress with patience. It took her longer than usual and she finally made it happen!

• As I learn to practice consistent meditation and many other areas of learning, I am adopting the mindset that however slow it may be, it is still better than no progress at all. 

The opposite of patience is impatience. We become impatient when we feel we are losing control or command over a situation, and this gives rise to frustration that would result in rash and destructive actions.

• Thoughts are very powerful and one could easily blow them out of proportion and, as a result, lost perspective over a situation. I was getting annoyed with the service staff for taking too long to address my issues, this is largely because I am under the impression that my time is more valuable, and my purpose more worthwhile. I failed to recognise that she was already trying her level best to fix the issues which were broadly beyond her control too.

• Patience is a form of compassion. It is not just about mere restraint or tolerance, it is also about whether we are actively engaged in understanding others’ struggle and welfare. 

Patience enables us to achieve things that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. Exercising patience does not mean never protesting or giving up, but only ever doing so with a calm mind and a gentle heart. There are different levels of patience, and good patience is the outcome of one’s good character.

Lyn 🌻😊