6 Reasons Why You Should Be More Patient
On patience: a key to success, love, and fulfillment
Why wait? Life is short.
I’ve grown up incredibly impatient. Being extremely efficient, doing everything at once, upset by people and circumstances that held me back, patience for me was a synonym of laziness. If you know what you want, you should go there and get it, right? Yet, in every area of my life- from spirituality and magic to business development, I’ve bumped into the need for patience.
Gladly, life always finds a way to bring you exactly what you need to learn (if you dare to listen). In my case, I had the perfect role model for patience right at home: my mother, the most patient of all beings. Yet, it took me decades to grasp the immense power of this virtue.
Here are the reasons I learned that make patience a highly needed quality for living joyfully and fulfilling our dreams.
1. Impatience = Fear
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Leo Tolstoy
How long have you given yourself to work on your dreams? Or to meet new people instead of settling for an ok relationship? Because we do not fully trust our whole dreams to manifest, because we are rigid and scared, impatience can lead us to get attached to the second or third-best. We say something “ is good for now”, and allow ourselves to stay there.
The result? Because we do not give ourselves time to go after what we want, we settle for less. Because we lack patience, we get attached to what is not good enough. Because we are scared, our impatience drives us to settle for less than what we truly want.
Cultivating patience is cultivating self-love. It is about allowing ourselves to take the time we need to get what we truly want out of life. If love always wins, it is because love is patient.
“To lose patience is to lose the battle.” Mahatma Gandhi
2. Slow Down: Be Here, Now
Patience allows us to slow down, and not take things so seriously. To take a breather, and relax in our bodies, minds, and hearts, regardless of what is going on. It is an invitation to not make a drama, to not run away from this present moment, and observe. This simple act allows us to see things that we would miss if we were in a rush. In this way, it allows us to connect much deeper to all around us. As we observe, we grasp new lessons in what is, and we understand what is happening around us on a deeper level.
As we trust and rest, we can more easily connect, we become friends with the dark, and we stay present in it, ultimately cultivating lightness.
“Your mind is constantly hijacking you from the present moment — either Into the past or into the future, but it never allows you to be now, to be here. By infinite patience is meant that “I trust, I am not worried. I am not rushing for tomorrow. I will rest in this moment. I will allow this moment its totality. I will explore this moment with my totality.” Then immediately, without even a second in between, something wells up within you, something overwhelms you: a kind of music, a kind of melody, a feeling of well-being, as if everything is as it should be, you are at home, nothing is needed, all is perfect. That feeling is bliss — that everything else as it is, is right; it is absolutely okay, it cannot be better. That feeling is bliss, but that feeling is possible only when you relax, are patient, unhurried.” Osho
3. Acknowledge and Respect the Flow of Life
Life is much bigger than any of us. The thing is, anything we do takes time to bear fruits. In a way, this is about acknowledging and respecting the flow of life — and dancing with it, instead of forcing our way through it.
When striving for immediate gratification, we want the fruits without the harvesting. This is not how it works. We are to garden our life, and have as much joy as possible doing it. Life is a big process, and if we don’t live it, what are we running towards but completion, a.k.a. death?
“Nature never rushes, yet everything gets done.” Lao Tzu
This is a never-ending road. You will always have things on your to-do list… There is no “once I get there”. “Once you get there” is nothing but a point before you establish another point to get to. Even if all you want next is to meditate the whole day or paint your bedroom wall. So we’d better rush less, and enjoy more.
This is an invitation to balance male and female, fire and water, solar and lunar, yin and yang energies: to keep walking forward — in total presence, and in joy. Enjoy seeing the fruits of your work blossom, and how to become a better gardener of your dreams.
The truth is, Rome wasn’t built in one day. Things will not happen without some kind of work, and you will not work and persist if you lack patience.
4. Impatience = Control Issues & Lack of Trust
No one can do it better than you, right? If you have issues with control, chances are you have issues with trust. Not only trusting other people but trust as a whole. Trust in life, trust in oneness.
“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in your mind.” David G. Allen
No one has control over everything. That means that whatever the scenario, there are more forces at play than what you do and what you want. How about working with them? Even if I really want to go out with my friend right now, my friend might need 30 minutes more.
Patience is the act of embodying our lack of control. Of respecting the will and need of others and not forcing ourselves over things. Of accepting that things have their own way. Of accepting obstacles as learning experiences. Of accepting the free will of others. Be it for tolerance, for understanding, for loving, or for connecting.
And who knows — maybe you escaped being run over by a car because you left later than you wanted. Who knows all we are avoiding by our “delays” — accepting the infinite possibilities of scenarios is part of releasing control over our rigidity.
We can know what we want and work for it — but we cannot force it to happen. Heck, even if you order a cheese pizza, you might still get a broccoli pizza delivered. We have no control. When we lack patience, deep down we are living in fear that things will not go our way. At that moment, we are by default separated from the whole.
Can we trust that if things do not go our way, it is completely ok?
In fact, it might even bring something unexpected and extraordinary. Patience is the ultimate act of trust in the bigger picture. We do not always know what is best. Whatever is to come will come, sooner or later. (That said, I am a firm believer in intuition; at times our apparent lack of patience can also be an inner knowing of other variables to our highest good; in other words, timing. Everything has its time and it eventually comes. It just happens that in this day and age, we are highly affected by impatience, but that said, discernment is the master key).
“Impatience also shows that you are not trusting your dreams, you are not trusting your totality of longing. Patience simply means: I will wait, whatever time it takes for the spring to come — but I will not wait patiently; I will wait with a heart throbbing, desiring, waiting… each moment, day in, day out. Waiting for the ship is a very total action on your part — because the action is total, your trust is total.” Osho
5. Clarity — and the Lack Thereof
Patience invites us to handle pieces of the puzzle that are out of our control with love and understanding- meaning that not only that we don’t know when these pieces will act, but also how they will act and if the consequences of their acts are what we want or not.
When we want total clarity and certainty, what we want is control. Clear outcomes, clear deadlines.
The thing is, we are not supposed to know everything. If we had complete clarity and knew how everything would play out, we wouldn’t need to deal with insecurities and lack of trust. This is on purpose, by design, for what would be the growth and expansion in that? Courage only exists when there is a fear to beat. Courage, like patience, is a virtue from the heart, from when we choose to act out of love instead of out of fear.
Anyone can drive 100 km, while only being able to see 2 meters ahead of them. If patience is trust, then patience is an invitation to take on that road and enjoy the drive, seeing every new 2 meters with ease and wonder.
“If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.” Isaac Newton
6. Oneness
This is my favorite reason to be patient. We can know perfectly well what we want — however, how and when it will come together is beyond our control. Working on our dreams is above all a work of co-creation, between on one side what we want and what we can do through our will and actions, and on the other side a set of external circumstances that can go for or against us- from unexpected opportunities, adversities, and people. Patience allows us to work well with all these circumstances, as a whole. Everything is in its due time.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Proverb
The more we recognize how we are connected to each other, the more we realize that we are not moving towards our visions as an individual, but as a whole. The more we are impatient, get irritated and try to push things through, the more we are seeing ourselves as separated from the whole. Patience is a side-effect of connection and understanding oneness. It is not only about getting something but about how we get there - and getting there together.
Love is understanding and generates connection. In this sense of embodying oneness, the trust of patience is an act of love. When we do not trust, when we need control, we are first and foremost acting out of fear — which again disconnects us even more from the whole. Patience in this sense becomes a test of how much we can (or cannot) love.
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” John Quincy Adams
The other side of the coin…
Like any virtue, patience also has its possible distortion, a vice so to speak. Virtues happen right in the middle of two extremes. What lies in one of the extremes we all know: lack of patience, irritability, lack of trust, fear.
And what lies on the other side of the spectrum? Infinite patience that is total yin, passive energy, waiting for others or the universe to work itself out and deliver what we want without moving a finger. That is fine for things we don’t care about at all — or for fun sexual foreplay.
However, when we do that permanently, we give away the life within us that wants to move. In this way, we neglect ourselves, escape our hearts and dreams, evade responsibility, and accept everything. Like someone in a terrible relationship who just stays there, despite being upset. And just like that, we victimize ourselves, and stay in situations we don’t want.
“Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it’s cowardice.” George Jackson
Patience does not mean to back off and not take action. Just like loving does not mean accepting everything and letting someone step on you, patience does not mean expecting everything to happen on its own.
“Patience is not passive waiting. Patience is active acceptance of the process required to attain your goals and dreams.” Ray A. Davis
Final Remarks
Patience is a virtue that my spiritual development has often challenged me on, exactly because it is a virtue of love and oneness. As with any other quality, it does not exist on its own: patience does not exclude activity or creativity; it just shows a different way of putting things together. Patience knows when and how to act from a place of love — and not from fear that things might not happen according to one’s way. It is a quality that supports deep listening and connection.
“Inner peace is impossible without patience. Wisdom requires patience. Spiritual growth implies the mastery of patience. Patience allows the unfolding of destiny to proceed at its won unhurried pace.” Brian Weiss
As we expand in consciousness, what we are asked to do is to expand in love, and in understanding- qualities that bring about patience. When we get to a place of exerting patience in an authentic way, and not forcing it, we’re on our way to the understanding and oneness of love. Not the emotional love we normally focus on, but the spiritual love which begins with understanding.
“Love, esoterically and in reality, is perceptive understanding, the ability to recognize that which has produced an existing situation, and a consequent freedom from criticism; it involves that beneficent silence which carries healing in its wings and which is only expressive when the inhibition aspect of silence is absent and the man no longer has to still his lower nature and quiet the voices of his own ideas in order to understand and achieve identification with that which must be loved. Can you follow the beauty of this concept and comprehend the nature of this silent depth of true understanding?” A.B.B., The Externalization of the Hierarchy
The way I experience it, this whole life is about creating situations that allow us to learn and develop the qualities we need to evolve. Be it to be more present and listen better, to be more loving, connected, courageous or patient: we can improve any of them by hanging with friends, grocery shopping, or surrendering to our dreams. The trick is to slow down enough to not miss the queue.
What situations are there in your life now for you to practice more love, trust, understanding, and connection?
Hi, I am Aline Ra M, spiritual guide, energy worker, and tea lover.
