Patience

…is a virtue I appreciate more each day. I have traditionally been an impatient person, although because I’m self-policing, a lot of my frustration has been “safely” squelched away, internally, so as not to appear unreasonable. Yeah, right. With an audible sigh, a scowl, and eyes to the sky, how could I appear patient? And furthermore, why try to appear to be something I’m not; can’t I just learn to be patient? I wonder how many people who appear to be patient are just better at acting.

The method I have been trying to use is to consider times in my own life when I’ve not approved of my behavior or words, and considering that someone else might be dealing with something similar. Whether it’s because I’m tired, moody, hungry, in pain, confused, worried, scared, overconfident, disrespectful, inconsiderate, lazy, selfish, jealous, defensive, upset, grieving, frustrated, helpless, ill, or in some otherwise affected state, my ability to be patient is compromised. Whether these are acceptable states of being is another post. We’re taking baby steps, here.

I think I’ve gotten a lot better with patience in recent past, but there was one major component I was missing: being patient with myself. I realized I needed to be patient with myself by necessity when went through a troubling experience. Not optimal, but the silver lining is that it led me to my next lesson, which I’m currently working through.

At what point does patience shift into tolerance, and how does one decide where to draw the line between not enough tolerance and too much?