Nature doesn’t promise any ‘quick fixes’ but can surprise you when you stop, for just a moment, and smell the roses. Nature has the power to heal as much as it has the power to destroy and it cannot be underestimated. It is no wonder that Patience feels at home in Nature’s presence, sharing the constraints and limitations that Time can pose, but doesn’t necessarily manifest. A mutual understanding has to exist between Patience and Nature, even if they work at different speeds.
Patience is frequently asked to deliver more than it can in the time it has available. The person asking can invariably run into trouble, thinking that Time can provide all the answers or Time is the answer. You see, being patient doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with ‘having to wait longer’ to accomplish something. It is not so much about requiring more time (every time) in order to achieve a goal, as needing to become more tolerant in the quest to reach it – using whatever time you have available, more wisely. Is it simply about managing your reactions and emotions in order to feel less… impatient?
When a person is willing to embark on a working relationship with Patience, then it makes for a much healthier and successful journey ahead. Recognising that Patience is something that will serve them well may not be the hard part to figure out. Invariably people tend to find it difficult to apply, each and every time putting up a struggle which breaks the connection and the spark fizzles out. This is when you can find yourself back in the hot seat! Your respect for Patience goes up a notch, as you finally come to realise all the benefits to be had from working together. Sensing the extra weight back on your shoulders, which had been previously carried by Patience, now leaves you wishing that the connection remained unbroken. Fortunately you can re-engage with Patience at any time, albeit perhaps on a different task if time had run out for you, on this occasion!
Patience tends to be left out in the rain on many occasions and has learned to pack a waterproof jacket in readiness for one of those rainy days. It knows full well that it can be hard to work with round the clock. Is having patience a part of a lifestyle practice? I think it is something we all strive to have – as one of our five a day! After all, it is a filling that is packed with good nutrition! Even eating healthily, all of the time, requires a level of commitment too! It is difficult to deny that with practice, many things can be achieved. Even the process that leads up to refining your skills could turn out to be enjoyable, once any negative attitude subsides. Bear in mind there is a wide range of situations to consider, each one requiring a lesser or greater amount of patience.
I remember when I was a youngster learning to thread a needle, being told to have more patience! What did that actually mean? The task involved lining the eye of the needle up with the end of a piece of thread that always seemed to be frayed no matter how many times the end got snipped. I don’t think Patience required an ‘amount of time’ to perform at its best. All the time in the world wasn’t going to get a strand of cotton to do what it didn’t want to do. It was, however, about the amount of times I practised this task in order to become better at guiding it through the hole – and keeping it on the other side long enough to bring my hand around to catch the end before it slid back out!
Often, as I squinted one eye, whilst quietly smiling with joy at my impending achievement, I learnt that moving too fast – in haste to catch the so and so – was detrimental. The speed in which I moved invariably caused it to fall out. Moving a little more slowly actually got me to the end result far quicker. Therefore, you could argue that it would appear, in this instance, I took a little more time. Yes, more time because I moved slowly (after all it takes time to move slowly). Yet, less time was spent overall as I didn’t have to keep starting over and over again once I changed my pattern of behaviour.
I don’t think Time is always a prerequisite in order for Patience to work to its full potential. Patience will always be accompanied by Time but not always dictated by Time. Nevertheless, something can take time to achieve and it is quite possible that it simply cannot be achieved any faster. You may need Patience to accompany you while you wait or while you do what needs to be done. This is because there will be other influencing factors involved and Time is not prescriptive. When I became successful at threading needles, I think I simply became accustomed to doing it with an element of patience and it began to take less time than it did before. So, as a result of practising patience I became more tolerant. Out of necessity, I even went on to make my own duvet covers, curtains and clothing; this is when Time played a different part, as I had freed it up (wisely) to save me a few pennies. Remember, our time is valuable in more ways than one!
It would be a good idea to consider something else that requires an amount of time to complete and one which invites Patience to tag along, to accompany Time during the process. If we know, in advance, that we will have to wait for something to work out, then we will know how much patience is required along the way – right? It’s doubtful we will know how much exactly as we have learned that Patience doesn’t equate its existence to that of time! It isn’t unreasonable to assume that once we have practised something several times we could probably gauge how much Patience was involved at the time, and would need to be involved again, were the same circumstances to arise.
Start with a simple analogy to whet the appetite and imagine you are taking a one-hour maths exam or, say, an art exam. You are already anticipating that a little patience will be required while you face up to and overcome the odd difficulty in either finding the solution or creating a new design. How much you will need isn’t known just yet, because you’ve never taken the ‘real’ exam before. You only hope that you can keep calm and rational whilst tuning in to a meditative state long enough to reach the right conclusion and come back out of it again in time to hand the work in completed – all within fifty-nine minutes, having one to spare!
Using a negative situation to illustrate a point, assume that you didn’t pass first time and now have an opportunity to do it all over again. You undergo a bout of self-evaluation and come to the conclusion that you ran out of patience as you attempted to draw the silhouette, in the art exam, without first drafting up a sketch. The result looked more like a splodge of shadows, about to pull their next victim into the afterlife, underground, as they appeared to fall off the bottom of the page one by one. The decision to practise a few more times and allow Patience to entertain along the way meant that during the retake the amount of patience required could be more predictable. The exact quantity is still debateable but hindsight comes into play. On this occasion, whilst you may not know how much you will need next time, you know it’s a darn sight more than you had before.
When we practise the art of being patient in our everyday lives, we will become familiar with our own practices and recognise what makes us tick. When we look at what our ‘normal’ approaches are to executing our goals, handling difficult situations or making a lifestyle change – which turns our world upside down temporarily – we will have an idea about our potential to remain patient throughout. We may have an idea in advance how much we will need.
How much is required is unlikely to be measurable. Often, you will hear yourself say, “I need more patience” or “I don’t have enough”. Neither statement represents an amount in kilos. You can’t bag it up and pack it in your toolkit in exact quantities, but you will have a sense of how much patience you have already or are going to need. Equally, you may embark on a new adventure and find, part way through, that you just don’t have enough of the magic stuff to help you reach your destination. Maybe it wasn’t about Patience after all, and it was simply because your mission was too challenging – all the patience in the world would not have been sufficient to carry you through to the finishing line. This is OK. The key here is to recognise what it is that held you back. Get that bit right first and then you can think about your next steps. Understand what else you need to learn. If the decision to stop doing what doesn’t work is the lesson to
be learned, then you can move on and put Patience back in the ring with something else that feels a little more up your street.
Supposing Patience is as generous as Time, it still doesn’t (just like Time) do anything all on its own. Although, having said that, I am certain we like to think that it does. When we say, “Just have patience and give it time”, what do we mean? Does that mean we simply do nothing? After all, Patience will look after us – won’t it? If we are putting so much emphasis on being patient then why doesn’t Patience appear to be doing anything? Oh right… it all goes on behind the scenes. Patience is part of an illusive act which draws us in when we find ourselves gallantly marching towards each goal and we trust it will also be our saviour in times of need. Are we getting confused with Hope? Nope! I reckon when we are being hopeful, we require Patience to hang around as well. When we are being patient, Hope may sneak in and offer moral support. These two characters are different. I don’t think either one can be the other’s replacement. They just happen to complement each other, especially when Time and an element of uncertainty are involved.
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Patience adores Time; she is a humble and delightful character to get to know and have around. I promised myself, initially, that I wouldn’t be gender specific when I wrote about the characters that gently emerge throughout this book. I am finding it hard not to at times but if a gender comes to mind then I will go with that first instinct. In fact, feel free to change the gender; whatever works for you. If I had characterised Time in much the same way, I bet it would have been a masculine entity and on reflection Time had such a presence that it now makes complete sense. Patience is attracted to Time and they get on very well. They are made for each other.
Naturally, these two characters cannot be entirely responsible for what happens to everything they oversee. It’s like saying to them both, “Will you watch my bag?”, as you go and get a coffee, then expecting them to be fully responsible when it goes missing in your absence. They both saw what was happening but couldn’t actually do anything about it. Once it does go missing, though, they both come into play but they didn’t do anything on their own, so why make either of them responsible?
In this next point, did Time or Patience actually do anything on their own? If you put a vegetable seed in the ground then it will take time to germinate and grow, so you will need to be patient if you are planning to use the produce in a future recipe. You can’t plan to uproot it the next day and throw, let’s say, a carrot into the pot; it isn’t a realistic proposition. It’s going to need water and a few nutrients to swim up the old xylem first, in order for it to grow. The xylem is the transport system, for those of you who have left your biology days behind. Then, it will be kissed goodnight by both Patience and Time and watched over with kindness. Gosh, if only all things were this simple.
Watching is often the operative word! Watching the slugs come along and disfigure the leafy carrot tops that protect the roots, which we go on to eat, doesn’t mean Patience actually achieved anything by hovering around, doing nothing to intervene. It doesn’t alert the pest control service on your behalf, so what role does it play? So far it has offered little tangible support in your endeavours to grow a carrot. So, to prevent any slug invasion from happening it is worthwhile taking the time, first, to prepare the ground; this is when Patience will probably flirt a little with its suitor. Preparation requires Time and so invites Patience along to keep it company.
Often in life, there are plenty of things that need to be present in order for something else to happen. We usually have to get involved, somehow, in order for a desired result to surface. The postman in the sky can put in the overtime but it takes a degree of patience on our part to leave him to deliver our intentions when he is good and ready. This is unlikely to happen (in our time zone) if we keep on clock-watching.
Even I’m wondering, how does Patience operate?, as it is beginning to sound more and more mysterious as I play with analogies. If Patience came with an instruction label it would possibly say something like, “Use on a regular basis: to assist you in making difficult decisions; while waiting for long-term plans to unfold; helpful in cases where uncertainty can still be unproven, given time; when your mind is constipated – you can’t think straight – and you’ve nearly given up all hope.”
Phew! And this would just be the initial paragraph that could be found occupying the outer layer of packaging, if indeed Patience was obtainable in a little box for convenience and sourced over the counter. It would clearly come with a caveat, telling you to read the full set of instructions inside as they may contain additional and important information.
There will be side effects from adding Patience to your existing portfolio of emotions, and whilst it isn’t an emotion per se it can certainly make you feel emotional. Emotions can be experienced when you either haven’t enough patience left to cope with the task in hand, or you can boast about having so much of it to begin with that you end up feeling a little too laid back. An excess can be a hindrance if it stops you from finishing a job you started; you can fall prey to developing a form of apathy that mutates the longer it is left ignored. You thought at first you could manage your time. Yet, from previous experience, many of us know that Time runs out. Time is deceptive, although it is probably ourselves who work on this pretence.
Can you really be too patient? Is it rendered useless when it canoodles with Time, forgetting that it had a remit to support you rather than inadvertently slow down your efforts? Wasn’t Patience supposed to help you get through something instead of keeping you time-bound? Firstly, we tend to slow ourselves down when we take our eye off the ball or divert our attention elsewhere. I am not saying that we don’t have cause to do so on many occasions. We can be excellent at justifying our actions! Secondly, being time-bound isn’t such a bad idea. Sometimes this serves a purpose because, while something is going on over there, something else can be going on over here; eventually the two events marry up and hey presto: result! You get mail delivered to two postcodes; the law of attraction gets to prove itself when left to operate in the peace and quiet and, interestingly, Patience stops being something you have to search for and occurs as one of your natural resources.
What are the consequences associated with waiting too long for something to come to fruition in our lives? Well, it may be useful for you to start thinking about the things that hold you back before deciding if it has anything to do with Patience and if using it as a scapegoat is appropriate. What if Patience was the victim here and leaning on her was just an excuse to avoid dealing with something else that was stopping you from moving forward? I am quite certain that a range of positive and negative consequences will be indicative of your past experiences and some may start with an ‘if’ or a ‘but’, or a phrase that caveats the reason why something hasn’t been achieved yet. Equally, the consequences may just be the side effects that you had envisaged all along, and Patience happily saw you through to the finishing line in one piece.
A common phrase, ‘Patience is a virtue’, would be fitting if we knew for certain that good things are always waiting around the corner as a result of actually waiting. No doubt they will be – somewhere – it’s just the case of us finding them or them finding us! They are bound to be twiddling their thumbs or hinting for us to head in their direction as they play a game of charades, squashed up against a one-way mirror looking persuasive, yet we can’t see them. We hope to catch sight of them in our dreams and as we go into a trance, daydreaming to bring them into our own reality just for a moment. Other times, they just happen to turn their backs on us, unaware that we can see them from a distance, as we frantically try to get their attention – but alas our eyes don’t meet. And so we wait again! Each time we bridge the gap with optimism until the time is right to shake hands.
I would like you simply to consider an idea that we can either hide behind this humbling character, Patience, to convince ourselves that waiting is a polite way
of demonstrating our ability to connect with Nature (and all good things come to those that wait), or, we can go jump the queue, dial up Nature direct and boldly ask it to reveal its secrets to success and that you won’t tell a soul… Nature will surely admire your audacity.
The laws that exist behind Nature’s existence are like puzzles. Just when you think you have them sussed they reveal another layer of mystery. You can feel a tad impatient. Incidentally, this isn’t always a sign of weakness, as it can encourage you to take the initiative to go and get better acquainted with Nature and take action. Patience has a beautiful knack for getting away with being ‘appropriately’ arrogant and may only appear impatient when it acts alongside Confidence, believing that everything is a possibility (which isn’t always a bad thing). I think you have to learn from past experience and decide for yourselves when impatience has been unhelpful. Then you can begin to master the art of being patient and enjoy the benefits.
Patience is aware that sometimes it can take a long time to help you work through one of your plans and witness a dream unfold through your eyes, in the way that you imagine. When things take time, we can be prone to becoming disheartened. We go between feeling positive and negative but it is important to understand and respect that these two words are not synonymous with success and failure respectively. Feeling one or the other does not, on its own, determine the end goal. When you feel negative for a while, it doesn’t mean that the end goal is doomed to fail. On the other hand, remaining positive doesn’t guarantee its success either.
You could be one of the most positive people in the world. But is being positive just a thought process that doesn’t amount to anything until you decide to ‘do’ something too? For years, I was positive that I was going to write a book one day; I knew it wasn’t going to write itself and I employed Patience on a full-time basis!
Emotional Sandwiches Page 12