Patience much more than a virtue

A number of months ago, while duty-free shopping at Singapore airport, my husband said to me, “Choose yourself some perfumes. I’ll buy them for you.”
“How many?” I responded excitedly.
“Whatever you want,” he casually responded browsing the aisles.

Greedily I grabbed a basket and started piling it with my favourites, even engaging a shop assistant to introduce me to new items. As my basket filled, I looked down at them and wondered, “Why do I need so many?” and even more incredulously, “Why do I need them all NOW?”

We live in a world of instant gratification. If you’re looking for something to do, there’s always TV. If you’re looking for something to eat, there’s always take-away. If you’re looking for something to buy, there’s always online shopping. Things are literally at your fingertips all the time. We want it all and we want it now. But where does this leave the all-but-forgotten skill (or virtue) of patience? Is there still a role for patience in our hurried world?

Remember that it takes nine months to grow from embryo to baby.
And, despite modern advances, it can still take 12-14 hours to fly across the world.
Many have said that it took at least ten years to become an overnight success.
We seem to be okay with the things we can’t change or have any control over like pregnancy and international flight. We then make best use of this time through mental, emotional and physical preparation for parenthood or we take books , music and videos to keep us company on long flights.

But we don’t take this gentle approach to other areas of our life that we still somehow believe we have control over. Instead we place unrealistic demands on ourselves, pushing and shoving all the time, in order to achieve something, get somewhere or meet expectations.

I teach public speaking and often see students terrified to speak because they compare themselves to people who’ve been speaking for twenty years.“It’s so easy for them, they’re gifted,” they say, “They can just get up and speak. I can’t do that.”
“Yes they are good, but they’ve been practising for twenty years,” I respond, “Give yourself a chance. Most things take practice, so why not give yourself permission to practice and be patient with yourself?”

So, what’s this impatience with life about? Why do so many people want to run before they can walk?

You absolutely do have the ability to become or do pretty much anything you desire – if you desire it enough and are willing to do what it takes. I’ve recently launched my book which took me a couple of years to write. It kept changing and evolving as I grew into being an author. Writing the book was as much about who I was becoming to be brave enough to release it to the world as about the message I wished to deliver. I finally got to the point where I was ready and could set it free.

This took patience with myself and patience with the process. I regularly applied action and followed the necessary steps. But the process itself unfolded in its own time reminding me of Dr Wayne Dyer’s words, ‘Infinite patience brings immediate results.’

It’s important to not lose sight of your big dream, but don’t use it as another way to beat yourself up. As Esther and Jerry Hicks ask ‘What is the next manifestation that is conceivable to you? Take that as your next action step.’ All these steps will eventually add up to your big dream and you’ll look back laughingly at all your experiences and who you’ve become along the way.

Even a Monarch butterfly takes most of its life becoming who it is. The life cycle includes up to five days as an egg; two weeks as a caterpillar and 12 days in the chrysalis. It therefore spends up to 31 days transforming into a magnificent butterfly that lives for a maximum of only 56 days. Therefore more than half their lifetime is spent preparing and transforming!

Make friends with time; and patience will then follow at its heels. With patience as a skill, you’ll manifest miracles and joy habitually, with less and less attachment.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy