The Strength in Stillness: How Patience Transforms Life
Introduction
Patience is “the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed “ – says the Cambridge Dictionary. Sadly, patience is rarely seen today. Impatience rules!
A common scenario observed nowadays is: You are at a traffic signal, and the light has yet to turn green. You are deafened by the incessant blaring horn of the car behind you. There is no way you can move forward until the traffic signal turns green, and neither can the car behind you. Where will he go by overtaking you? Then, what is the reason for his impatience? This trait of not having patience is trending rather alarmingly.
Today’s generation is so busy and they have everything at the swipe or click of a button, that they are unaware of the importance of being patient. Gone are the days when one could write a letter to a loved one and patiently await their reply by post or a telephone call. Cut to the present day, when one sends a text to a loved one and if they do not receive a reply in the next few minutes, they follow it up with a host of questioning emojis on WhatsApp! It is as if life is on a short fuse. No one has the time and patience to wait. They all want to reach their destination in a hurry, irrespective, that they are causing a traffic jam, in which they will be stuck.
Impatience never helps
Impatience makes us irritable and grouchy or angry or even abusive, rash or violent. If you do not have the habit of being patient, it may cause your blood pressure to fluctuate, you may get panic attacks, you may get ulcers, you may have gastric problems, you may get hyper, you may have headaches, you may have acne breakouts, you may be unable to control your emotions or think rationally. This will greatly affect your physical and mental wellness.
How patience improves our life
Great personalities William Shakespeare, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Saint Augustine, Francis Bacon, Marie Curie, Abraham Lincoln, Swami Vivekananda, etc. have all emphasized the importance of cultivating patience.
If you have infinite patience and perseverance, success is bound to come. No mistake in that
Let us see how increasing our patience improves our lives.
- Overall health: Being impatient makes us stressed and anxious and prone to linked illnesses like hypertension, ulcers, heart ailments, strokes, high cholesterol, etc. If we have more patience, it can greatly reduce the risks of all these ailments and improve our overall health and wellness.
- Gratitude: Patience teaches us to be mindful, and grateful and focus on what we have i.e. our current situation, in the present moment, rather than hyperventilating about it. It improves our sense of gratitude and in turn, helps to turn our negativity to positivity. Being thankful for the good things makes the not-so-good things less stressful.
- Managing stress: Patience teaches us to manage stress better. Take a few deep breaths, exercise a bit, relax and sit still. Sometimes it is good to sit back and let all the overwhelming emotions wash over us. Stressing is not going to offer any solution or improve your situation. Better to wait it out release all the stress from your system and calm down.
- Thought process: Patience teaches us to think clearly. After we are calm, we can re-think the entire process and come up with a solution, in no time! The break helped us gather our thoughts and re-think. How simple was that! Our batteries are recharged!
- Choice: Patience teaches us to choose – you have an important family function to attend but you are not keen to go as it is for an uncle you are not on good terms with. There is no alternative, you have to attend -either happily or unhappily. Think- happily is fine; unhappily will only spoil your mood. You conclude that it is better to go happily for yourself after all unhappy is going to give you a headache! This is also known as the “attitude of gratitude”, where we choose to focus on the happy part instead of the unhappy part.
- Control: Patience teaches us control. There may be instances where we feel powerless as things are not in our control. It is, currently, that, we need to focus on our emotions, thoughts, behaviour, and speech because they are in our control. This makes us react differently to such instances and not stress over them.
- Calmness: Patience teaches us to be calm. As the Indian scriptures say, ”do the deed- don’t desire the result”. Let us do the deed and be patient. In time, we will achieve the result in our favour. We need to calmly “wait for it”.
- Time: Patience teaches us to give time to any situation. Don’t look for instant results at the click or swipe of a button. There is no sense in instant gratification. ‘Good things take time”, as we all know. So, how about we let time take its course without interfering with the law of nature? Let things happen organically, sit back and await the outcome. If you have done your best, no one can deny you the result, after all, “better late- than never.”
There is a sharp increase in divorces because the couple lacks the patience that is required in their marriage/relationship, along with trust, communication, and commitment. They need to be taught that patience will make their marriage/relationship stronger. Show your spouse some patience when they have returned home from work after a tough day; listen to them without judging; give them time to calm down before you broach the subject of buying a new car! (or better, do not talk about it now), put off any discussions that are not so important or that may not be received well, keeping their present mood in mind; Be patient!
Patience is a crucial part of human nature. We need to cultivate it more, with time. The present generation too needs to be patient. Hopefully, they will tire, from running, non-stop – on the treadmill of life and learn to meditate for their peace of mind. Likewise, teachers need to be patient with their students, employers with their employees, and parents with their children; all relationships deserve to be maintained with patience.
To lose patience is to lose the battle
So, remember the next time the person in the car behind you honks, turn around and smile at him. He will spend the remaining time (that the traffic light takes to turn green) scratching his head, and wondering why on earth you smiled at him 😊 . At least the honking will stop !!
A special mention to the customer care executives, who bear the brunt of our impatience and irritation, but yet conclude the conversation with “Thank you for your time and patience. You have a great day!”.
