On Patience

Why we must cultivate this virtue if we are going to be the best version of ourseveles

How have you been, Nobody in Particular?

Out of any of the five qualities of love, compassion, gratitude, generosity, and patience, it is patience that is perhaps the most difficult to practice in contemporary society. In developed countries such as the U.S.—and perhaps every other Western developed nation—most people have certain expectations about how life should be lived, and very often these expectations are intertwined with a sense of immediacy or urgency.

And though our breakneck-speed paced culture often saddles us with a sense of entitlement with regard to getting what we want when we want it, I’ve discovered in the last few years that the things that really matter—the goals that are really worth working toward—don’t coincide with haste.

More often than not, the things we really want to accomplish in life take a great deal of time and need to flower in their own way, which is precisely why patience must be practiced in every type of personal growth endeavor. Whether you are trying to lose weight/live a healthier lifestyle, overcome an addiction, or simply improve your overall disposition, NIP, you must begin walking the path with the understanding that what you most want to accomplish with the remainder of your life will take time, perhaps lots of it.

Photo by Duane Mendes on Unsplash

While I’m sure we all have differing definitions of patience and what it is/how it works, I wanted to share this short excerpt from an article I had read long ago by Norman Fischer, a Zen roshi (teacher) who wrote the book Training in Compassion. Here’s what he has to say on patience:

Patience is the capacity to welcome difficulty when it comes, with a spirit of strength, endurance, forbearance, and dignity rather than fear, anxiety, and avoidance. None of us likes to be oppressed or defeated, yet if we can endure oppression and defeat with strength, without whining, we are ennobled by it. Patience makes this possible. In our culture, we think of patience as passive and unglamorous; other qualities like love or compassion or insight are much more popular. But when tough times cause our love to fray into annoyance, our compassion to be overwhelmed by fear, and our insight to evaporate, then patience begins to make sense. To me it is the most substantial, most serviceable, and most reliable of all spiritual qualities. Without it, all other qualities are shaky.

When I read this, it made so much sense to me as I reflected upon the five qualities that I have been trying to improve in myself over the last fourteen years. Though I do think that all five of them are in some sense an extrapolation of the first quality, love, I feel as if patience is the glue that binds them all together. The five qualities, to me, are not so much a linear progression but a circle, or spokes on the hub of a wheel. All of them are necessary complements to each other; to remove a spoke would mean the wheel becomes unbalanced and prone to failure.

When it comes to the actual practicing of patience, we must begin with ourselves. Much in the same way that we find it impossible to love others if we cannot love ourselves, if we cannot be patient with ourselves our dreams will never come to fruition. If you really want to get better at anything, overcome any obstacle, you must begin by being honest with yourself. Our life’s work of trying to become the best human being we are capable of becoming will not happen overnight. It will take our entire lifetime to achieve, and we must walk the path with integrity and patience.

Life will challenge us all and be extremely frustrating at times, but those are the moments in which we most need patience in order to be resilient. Although I have made many strides in my own personal cultivation of patience, I am smiling and shaking my head as I type these words knowing how much more work I have to do in this regard. To be fair, the responsibility we have to live the best life possible requires us to be patient with ourselves and others. Letting life blossom before us is much more rewarding than trying to act too quickly or taking on more than we can handle; the latter only leaves us stressed and disappointed, whereas the former is full of simple surprises.

When I first began my education career, I did so by teaching English. During my days of reading literature with young people, I grew rather enamored with a short story/essay by a famous Hispanic author, Rudolfo Anaya. The story is called “A Celebration of Grandfathers” and is a moving tale about the cultural changes that take place between generations. Rudolfo is a small boy who used to help his grandfather, a farmer, work his land.

And while there are many reasons why I love this short narrative, there are two lines in particular that I always think about (especially now that Erin and I are learning Spanish together): the first is Ten Paciencia, which means “Have patience”; the other is terse yet powerful—“know where you stand.” So I leave these two lines to you, Nobody in Particular. Know where you stand in relation to your life. What is it that you most need to work on? What is it that you would most like to accomplish with the rest of this incredible gift of life that you have been given? No matter what the answer is to any of these questions, always balance it with his grandfather’s command to “have patience.”

Ten paciencia, Nobody.

Namaste, Pax Vobiscum, and Much Love,

- Ryan / Phunky 🙏❤️🙇‍♂️