A short essay on patience

Meditation and journaling are great ways to go deeper into yourself and discover your thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Simple concepts and ideas that we take for granted in everyday conversation can emerge as having a much greater meaning to us.

In this excerpt from my journal entry on New Years Day, inspired by a Tara Brach meditation, I explore what patience means to me. As with every diary entry, this essay reflects a moment in time; it’s personal, nuanced and subject to change, and my intention by sharing it is to inspire reflection on what patience means to you.

January 1 2022 - Patience

I desire to cultivate patience. But patience without lethargy or inertia. Not the sluggish state of being where I have felt myself stuck to a chair listening but not listening to a podcast, or with the desire to read but with no intention to turn a page for at least twenty more minutes.

Patience is different. It’s a contentment with, and trust in, the inevitable process of change. Patience is a trust in the wisdom outside of oneself as well as in our own organismic growth. Patience says; "you can witness without intervention". You can let the unfolding of what is taking place happen and be open to learn with careful attention to what you could not predict, fashion or influence.

Patience has no ego. It has no agenda. It simply holds our life experience close, in readiness, just beneath the surface. Yet, patience is not disengaged. It is definitively present and attentive. It enables actions to hold meaning within the interconnectedness of life. It’s an attentive readiness that, if the invitation to contribute should arise, gives us the best chance for our contributions to be attuned, collaborative, and is not at all self-serving. Patience enables our offerings and contributions to meet the need that has manifested.

But how to cultivate patience, especially when abandonment of patience is so painfully urgent and the imagined outcome so desired?

Notice the urge to speak and act, then drop back. Pause. Begin to appreciate the finer details in all things, tasks and processes, and resist oversimplification.

Remember our worlds – inner and outer – are complex, dynamic and largely beyond comprehension, planning and control.

Be mindful of the colour of our own opinion, our tone towards self and others.

Do not rush.

Allow time for curiosity and second thoughts, and – most importantly – be in a state of observation... A holistic, deep and felt observation of what is.

So...they say patience is a virtue. Yet is it one that’s inherited, developed or found?

For me, it’s a deeply valued 'way of being' and one that I find squeezed out of my busy life too often. The value of a 'patience practice' has been squeezed out by internalised values related to productivity, efficiency and “where there is a will there is a way”; that is an internalised capitalism - something that follows the western order of things and not at all a given when we mellow to our natural rhythm of being and doing.

Patience is not a luxury afforded by those with time to waste. It is indeed a virtue for all the ways it facilitates growth, wisdom, connection and resilience. Patience is not a sure-fire way of getting what we want by other means, but it does enable us to surrender to life and its many influences and to conserve energy for the moments when we can wholeheartedly choose when and how to act.

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I'd love to hear your own thoughts on patience and journalling. Perhaps you are a naturally patient person or, like me, seek to develop patience rebelliously and go against the pressure to find ever more efficient and effective ways to make change happen. Do you remember the last time you called upon patience? What helped you stop and observe and how did it feel when you did? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you