Stop Wasting Your Time Being Angry and Cultivate Patience Instead

About the difference between being patient and wasting your time.

You are sitting in a restaurant. You are supposed to meet your partner for dinner to have a romantic evening with lots of laughter and joy. Instead, you are sitting there alone, waiting.

Where is he/she? You are already 10 minutes late because of the bad traffic. You start feeling uncomfortable. Alone among all the other happy couples and friends. Now you are getting angry. Why is he/she letting me wait? Am I not more important than anything else?

I’m busy too. I have tonnes of things to do instead of waiting for YOU. We‘re all terribly busy. I have never met somebody who said I have all my to-do’s done for the next month.

And then you feel it, you don’t want to be here now. This moment makes you sick. You want to escape it. You can’t stand it. When is it over?

Suddenly, you spot your partner and feel relieved. It’s over. Still, you are angry he/she lets you feel like this and the evening starts with a weird mood.

Why Patience is Presence

We are impatient at work, with other people and to get things done. Living in a society that values quantity and speed, we are too often already one step ahead thinking about the future and the tasks hanging over us.

Rushing from one thing to the next feeds impatience like wind feeds the fire. Nothing can go fast enough. This makes us more anxious and stressed like ever before.

Your impatience means you want to escape this moment, the presence, because you cannot stand it. The present moment is the only reality we have. Being patient is being present. If we learn to be patient with ourselves, we learn to enjoy the present moment. And this is what life is about, enjoying the moment we are living in.

“Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Pain or happiness? Which one are you choosing? Every time you feel anger coming up, you have a choice. You can get angry or you can decide whether to value the moment. If you want to become more patient, you have to work on it intentionally.

How to Cultivate Patience?

The average person spends about 5 years just waiting in queues and lines. And most people are not happy during this time. We all get restless, uneasy, and complain about waiting.

Start to use this time to feel the present moment and be aware of your negative emotions. Ask yourself, are you forced to feel discomfort at this very moment or could you just change the way you think and feel by focusing on being in the here and now?

You might think now, that you can’t help it when you feel annoyed. But this is just a thought made by your mind.

Are you sure it’s the truth? You have to try this to find out.

I have noticed, I can change my mood by becoming more aware and mindful. Just yesterday I went to a nearby coffee shop to get lunch. I had exactly one hour until my next call. I ordered a soy cappuccino and a flatbread and sat down to wait for my order.

10 minutes passed

I started getting a little restless but decided to just enjoy taking a break outside.

15 minutes passed

I got more nervous because I knew I had to be back home for my call. Usually, I would have complained to the waiter in a probably not so friendly manner. This time, I reminded myself that I don’t know anything about the workload or mental load of the person in charge and practiced compassion. I friendly asked what had happened to my food and they found they had forgotten it. I said okay, no problem, and went back to my table. Then the real challenge began for me.

The voice in my head started talking: ‘I knew it! You should have gone over earlier. Now you are wasting your precious time here waiting. You could have used this 3o minutes doing something productive instead!’ It caused anger boiling up inside me, against myself, and the waiter of course.

This little voice can be aggressive and unkind. I decided not to follow this thought and let it pass. I consciously focused on the present moment. In the beginning, it was hard. But then I felt relieved and more relaxed.

30 minutes passed

My food arrived. Hurray! I spent the last 25 minutes happy and relaxed without anger. It took me 5 minutes to calm down my mind and focus on the present moment instead. I hope I will get even better with time.

Practicing patience made me have a relaxed lunch break instead of spending my energy fighting the waiter, the restaurant owner, and curse the world for wasting my precious time. This made me realize that only I can waste my time, not other people.

All these tiny irritations in life take our energy. They consume us and make us feel irritated so we end up being more prone to irritation. The result? We are becoming potentially angry people who just wait for the next thing to be angry about.

Being angry won’t change anything. It might just ruin your day. Instead, you are welcome to choose such moments as an opportunity to be present in the here and now. Watch out for the little irritations and fight them off before they take over your mood.

Everything takes practice. But just imagine if you can reduce the time you are irritated and annoyed by 50% instantly. Would this not make a significant difference in your happiness and life?

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