L e a r n i n g Patience

Photo by Luigi FDV

You would think that once you have acquired patience that you would possess it always. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. My 16 month old is a master at teaching me about patience and stopping to smell the roses. She is curious and thus will take her time, end of story. Yet according to my astrological chart I possess fire all over, my sun, moon and rising signs are all fire, and so I am used to blazing my way through life’s challenges even if it is done at 70% I just keep on going, who cares about the other 30% I say?

Some people have patience in one area in their lives and not much patience in another. Take my life for example; I waited until I was almost 35 years old to meet the love of my life. So that took a l o n g time, and I didn’t settle for second best as I knew he was coming towards me. So granted I had patience. Standing in queues, waiting on hold on the telephone and waiting for my web browser to load up, these things just drive me nuts if I have to wait longer than necessary, what would you say is a reasonable amount of time? Well depends what else I am juggling and how much time I can afford to waste!

I also value punctuality and will be on time 95% of the time, and so if I need to wait for someone else this too can leave me a little bit frazzled as obviously they do not have the same value. Again patience comes in handy when you have no control.

I also have a sense of urgency when it comes to doing things around the house, if you think about it too long and action plan each minute detail it doesn’t get done as you are still too busy planning. I am a doer, and so it just gets sorted quickly, that is my motto. When you ask for assistance say from husband and he doesn’t jump at your command, then I get impatience really quickly. Ok it is not life or death but it means I need to be patient AGAIN.

Reading the above paragraph makes me sound like a pushy wife, yes that I am. Perhaps I can practice counting to 20 in these situations, as they say your priority doesn’t constitute a priority to the other person. Something to think about and take on board. ( see I am coaching myself)

So learning patience is an acquired skill that you need to practice on a daily basis otherwise you run out of steam and just get angry at every little thing. And what will that achieve? You will age quicker, have a short fuse with others and you will get more wrinkles.

So take a breath and let go.