more patience

If you were to ask my parents about what I was like when I was younger, I highly doubt that the word “patient” would show up in the conversation. I was generally the kid who couldn’t wait for a single second on something or someone, because I was too excited (or concerned) for the next moment. Whether it was waiting for my mom to say dinner was ready, waiting to get where we were headed in the car, or waiting in the grocery store line, patience was not a virtue I possessed very often. To be completely honest, it’s something I still struggle with quite a bit.

The interesting thing about patience is that often when we lack it ourselves, others will also struggle having it while being around us. It’s almost contagious, and not in a good way, but rather a COVID-19 way. I remember a time in high school when the majority of my class got the “impatient bug” waiting for a teacher to give us our grades on a big history test. We were all chomping at the bit to hear how good or bad we had done, and we weren’t afraid to tell the teacher about it. We were all constantly asking if she had graded the tests, and we quickly got on our teacher’s nerves. It had only been a few days since we had taken the test, and she got pretty upset with us for pressuring her so much. In response to our impatient demands, she began to use the classic “college card” that high school teachers like to pull. If you don’t know what I’m referring to here, high school teachers always tell students how hard college will be, and how they should be grateful for how they are preparing us for what college will be like. Having experienced college now, I can say that the majority of what high school teachers tried to tell us about the difficulty of college is slightly misleading, as I think there’s more flexibility with time in college to make it easier or harder for yourself. However, this teacher was right about having more patience when it comes to getting grades back. College professors will take weeks to get things graded, and you definitely can’t pester them like we did with our high school teacher to hurry up. The only thing you can do is have patience for your own sake, because refreshing the online grade book every five minutes isn’t very productive.

Patience is something that is not only courteous to others, but it’s also a way to be kind to ourselves. If we are able to have patience, it allows us to take a deep breath, and enjoy who we are with and what we are doing. Being impatient will only bring about other feelings of stress, irritability, and anxiety. On the opposite, having patience will bring calmness into a situation that might desperately need it. Patience is less about just simply waiting, and more about being content with the circumstances to make the most of the time we have. I’m sure a lot of us are lacking patience with the current situation that we find ourselves in, but I think we should all recognize that being patient with what’s happening doesn’t equate to waiting for the pandemic to be over. It’s cherishing and being calm while still looking ahead to what could be next, regardless of the uncertainty of the future.

Have patience for others, and have patience for yourself this week. Look forward to what’s next, but don’t spend all of your energy worrying about it.

There’s more to patience.

There’s more to it all.