Patience is a virtue that can only be developed once you have run out of it.
Journal Entry: Sunday, July 31, 2022
When I was younger I suffered from impatience and frustration with myself for many years or rather for many moments in many hours over many years and often felt overwhelmed with my life. I didn’t have the endurance to be impatient for more than a few moments at a time.
Patience was a quality that I knew I needed to develop. If you are an impatient person, then you will have a lot of opportunities to develop patience.
When difficult times or circumstances are upon us, we often desire to disappear or go into hibernation till it is over. It is like being caught in a tempest and wanting to seek shelter in a cave till the storm has passed. But the storm is often inside of us. Then where do you go for shelter?
Hard times make one feel like a racer who thought they were training for a sprint and then find out they are running a marathon. It is an endurance race that requires a completely different kind of practice and a different set of strategies.
Endurance: the act of working very hard without stopping, even in the face of difficult situations or pain.
If we can use these times – and we all find ourselves in them over and over again - as an opportunity to try to see the big picture and develop the patience to work through such difficult times, it is a real character-building experience that we will make use of the rest of our lives.