avatarArosa Jabein

Summary

The article discusses the concept of finding inner peace through a deeper understanding and practice of patience, emphasizing the importance of appreciating the journey rather than just the destination.

Abstract

The article delves into the challenge of maintaining peace while practicing patience, a virtue often advised but misunderstood. It suggests that true patience is not passive endurance but an active engagement with the process of growth and change. The author draws inspiration from Shams of Tabriz, as presented in Elif Shafak's "The Forty Rules of Love," to redefine patience as the ability to see the positive outcomes of a challenging process. The article encourages readers to embrace the value of personal development during waiting periods, to enjoy the journey, and to understand that hardships are integral to achieving significant goals. By shifting one's perspective to appreciate the process, one can find peace and happiness even in difficult times.

Opinions

  • Patience is commonly misunderstood as simply waiting and enduring pain, but it should be about actively engaging with and enjoying the process of life.
  • The process of waiting is an opportunity for personal growth, skill development, and the unlocking of new potentials.
  • Challenges and hardships are inevitable parts of pursuing big dreams and should be seen as valuable components of the journey.
  • Enjoying the path to one's goals, rather than fixating on the destination, can lead to a more fulfilling and peaceful life.
  • The article suggests that patience involves a thought process that acknowledges the meaning and value of the period of waiting and the associated challenges.
  • The author believes that a slight shift in perspective can significantly impact one's ability to find peace and calmness, even during tough times.

How Do I Find Peace While Practicing Patience?

Ever wonder that why we cannot find peace and tranquility while practicing peace?

Photo by Tobias Bjørkli from Pexels.com

We have listened these advice thousands of time in our lifetime that “Be patient, everything will be good” or “Be patient, you will find your way”.

We are listening these advices and words since our childhood, and it has sets in our mind that being patient is all we can do in many of situations. We have to wait for good times to come, or we have to wait for some specific person to come, and only then we will be happy and satisfied from our lives.

Whether we have religious views or not, we have made to think that being patience will bring happiness and reward, and we will be happy eventually at the end of the day.

We are human being, we need immediate solutions of our problems and immediate interpretation of our dreams. When all of the people around us told us to be patient while we are struggling with problems and hardships, it becomes very difficult to actually believe.

We all have been through some challenging life times when we thought that all words of hope, patience, or peace are meaningless.

  1. How can I be patient or have peace when I am not getting my desired job?

2. How can I practice patience when I cannot have that single person I desired?

3. How can I practice patience when my wishes are not coming true?

4. For how long do I have to practice patience?

These are questions that can destroy our inner peace while we are being patient. These questions create inner conflicts within ourselves, and we start to lose our hopes.

This is the battle that no one can see or no one can understand full,y and we started to feel stuck in our lives.

This is the hollowness that we could be even express in words and eventually lose inner peace and satisfaction with every passing day.

We should find some ways or perspectives that can help us find peace in practicing patience.

For this, we need to understand the word “Patience” first, and then we have to focus on our perspective.

I learned about new rules and perspectives of being patience while reading rules of love given by Shams of Tabriz in one of the famous novel “The Forty Rules of love by Elif Shafak”. She defined the patience as;

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to look at the end of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.

Patience is never about to suffer in pain until the time comes, and you get your wishes or dreams come true. It is never about living in pain. It is never about not being happy and just waiting for your wish to come true.

It is impossible for normal people like us. That’s why we need to understand the true essence and paradigm that patience gives us to help us pass through hard times.

  1. Patience is about enjoying the process instead of waiting for results.

2. Patience is about understanding the need of process.

3. Patience is about thought process that this process and delay has some meaning and value.

4. Patience is about learning new value and new personality during this process.

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels.com

Understand the importance of process

The most important thing to find peace in practicing patience is to understand the value of process instead of complaining about challenges and hardships. We need to understand that challenges that we are facing today are important for our dreams and objectives.

You cannot live an extraordinary life by doing what ordinary people do.

If your dreams and objectives are big then the hardships and challenges will be big too. Find a positive solitude with fact that challenges and hardships are part of process instead of having a negative mindset of passively enduring in time of patience.

Let the process change your value and personality

The process and time of waiting is an opportunity for us to build new values and skills that are important for our dreams. For example, you want to set a profitable business in next five years and working day and night for that. However, your skills and abilities are the same that were five years ago, believe me you would not be able to set your desired business. You might be able to collect an amount for setup, but you would not be able to run a profitable business.

But, if you are continuously developing new skills, new abilities and changing your personality during these five years then I can assure that you would be running a profitable business soon. Patience is all about learning new thing and unlocking new potentials that you never have imagined before to find peace in practicing patience. If you want to read more on this topic then read my previous.

Enjoy the way instead of waiting for destination

Most important thing that you need to enjoy the way that is leading you towards your destination, goals, and dreams. You love your goals and dreams, so you have to be in love with the sources, pain, and way that is taking you towards it.

I remember one of my family trip to the most beautiful place. It was the beautiful place, and we planned vacation for 3 days. We took a bus to go there. Many of us has the issue of road sickness too and travelling was too long and tiring. We were singing, dancing, eating and enjoying the outside views even we were not at the place where we wanted to be. Our bus was also down at some places, and we had to wait on the road for hours in harsh weather. However, we started to taking pictures, playing games and other things at that road while we were waiting. At last, we reach to our desired destination and that was beautiful. We enjoyed our time and came back in 2 days.

Let me tell you an amazing fact. Whenever, we friend talk about that trip and meet up. Each of us talk about our road adventure that we were forced to have in our way. Our best memories of that trip included our little games and fun during travelling. I am sure that many of us has experienced these things too.

It is a very small example to shift your paradigm that enjoying the process and finding new ways to live in that process gives you ultimate peace and happiness instead of getting to that desired destination.

There is slight shift of paradigm that can help you find peace and calmness even in hard days. As being a Muslim we fast for long, hot summer day and restricts ourselves to complain about hunger or thirst because we have firm believe that sun will set, and we will eat and drink all the things we want.

Finding peace in practicing patience is also about developing value and understanding the benefits of process in different ways.

I hope my writing brings some value in your thinking process, and it was worth of your precious time. Follow and subscribe to read more similar content.

Peace
Patience
Learning
Peace Of Mind
Process
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