Valerie’s Voice

What do they say – patience is a virtue?
I’m not sure why, but the more I seek ways to find some patience, the more elusive it becomes.
I seem to remember a time in my life when patience filled my life.
In most recent times, I’ve not been a patient person.
Now, there are times, when impatience isn’t a bad thing.
I’m very impatient when it comes to injustice.
Generally, though, I’m not as patient as I used to be.
Patience gives one opportunities to think and reason out a situation and it’s easier on the system.
Patience works better in terms of health, communication, and building relationships than impatience.
How does one claim, or re-claim patience?
I’ve been trying out a number of different ideas, sometimes they work and at other times they are not so successful.
Patience is perhaps, living in the moment. Much is being said and written about living in the moment.
It is difficult to do. We have experience and memory of that experience which often affects how we react to a situation.
As a child, I was sliding with friends and my sleigh went into a ditch filled with snow and turned upside down.
My head was buried in the snow and the sleigh on top of me. It took me, what seemed a long time to get myself out. No one was around, or, at least, seemed to notice my predicament.
For years after that whenever I got a stuffy nose, I was panicked.
It took me a long time to figure out the connection, where this reaction came from. I thought I had forgotten all about the sleighing incident, but I hadn’t.
Once I realized what I was reacting to, I was able to realize I had done well to get myself out of a difficult situation, and I was fine.
Now, if I have a stuffy nose, I’m not happy, but I realize, it is something that is not life threatening and will get better, so I have more patience.
Impatience comes from either reaction to the past, fear of the future, and probably a combination of those two elements.
The person I’m most impatient with is myself, perhaps that’s true of most of us.
I don’t have any magical answers to finding patience, but it feels better to be patient with people. I’m not concerned with learning to be patient in the light of injustices such as housing shortages and overcrowding, the topic of a series I’ve been writing recently, and many of the other social issues faced by people in our communities.
At times I’m successful in finding patience. Perhaps having some appreciation for those moments is a good start.

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