“Patience is a virtue” is a saying most have heard in life. Which is saying in short
that it is an honorable thing to be patient in life. But why is something that seems so
simple rather difficult for majority of the population to do? Why do we seem to lack
patience more often than not?
To be patient means to wait. To allow an allotted amount of time to pass to be able to see
things through or perhaps let things happen as they should before acting on anything. This
is a rather difficult task for the mind to do when there are feelings of excitement, anxiety,
impulse, fear, lust, hunger most especially, and/or any feeling that seems to need to be
immediately satisfied. When the mind forms a thought to do something, most of the time it
is something to be executed right away and this is a rather normal mindset or fleshly feeling to have.
However, just because we seem to naturally want to fulfil our thoughts and desires as soon
as they come to mind and body, doesn’t mean that’s the best way to execute that idea. The only way to figure that out is if we have the patience in our own minds to pin the idea to allow the thoughts run its course to see things through. To evaluate every possible angle. And while this seems like a daunting task to do, thoughts in the mind take anywhere from 5-30 seconds to race and run through very rapidly. If you allow your mind the time to sit and
think rather than feed into the impulsive feeling to pick and act on the first angle you see,
then you allow patience to do its job.
The key to having patience in life with people, task, and time, we must practice self-patience in the mind. This can be practiced with the littlest things such as waiting a moment or two before you take the first bite of food. Take a moment to be thankful before scarfing down the first bite while the wonderful scents waft your nose or the hunger pain is becoming stronger by the second. The feeling of hunger and taste will set in to drive your body to dig in, but that is a moment where you can just sit in the hunger for a moment, allow the feeling to subside and take a handle on it so your mind is telling you to eat rather than your flesh.
Once practiced patience on self to not act on impulse or give into thoughts and desires
immediately, this will be able to be easily applied with people we speak to, when cooking a
meal, when driving to the store, cleaning up a mess, getting ready for work, or doing something as simple as taking a walk in the park. Patience is more than just waiting to get your turn or execute the first thought at a specific time, it allows growth and change. It allows you to explore all you the options fairly before making a decision for yourself and most importantly others. Whether we see it or not every decision we make for ourselves affects someone somewhere. It’s all a domino effect, so it would behoove us all to practice the Art of Patience.
