Everyone waits. You can't really do anything about having to wait. You wait in line at the grocery store, the doctors office, a red light. We wait for winter to be over, for our broken leg to heal, for the cookies to bake. We really can't do anything to make these things go faster. We have to wait. So what is the difference between waiting and being patient? What do we mean when we say we need to be more patient with our kids or our coworkers? When we say someone is "trying our patience"?
This quote by Joyce Meyer answers that for me. We all wait, it is how we wait that makes the difference. Are we tapping the steering wheel at the red light? Are we silently criticizing the checker at the grocery store? Are we complaining about another cold snowy day?
When we realize this↑↑ we are more inclined to change our attitude. To have the patience we so boldly claim to want, but so often let slip between our fingers. When we realize that we will still get to see the doctor and that everyone else needs to see him too, we can calm down a bit. We may have to change some plans since we are now running late, but we can calmly accept that and make the necessary arrangement instead of boiling inside and probably snapping at the receptionist. The same goes for our children and coworkers. There is more than one way to do something, everyone is dealing with something in their lives, we all learn in our own time, we all make mistakes. When we can step back, take a breath, and remind ourselves of this, we can see that things can happen differently that what we would like, on a different time line that what we would like and it's okay.
There are worse things in the world that arriving 10 minutes late. Yelling at your kids because they spilled juice on their shirt when you needed to leave won't help you leave on time and may do more damage to your kid than you will ever know.
Obviously we aren't perfect. We are going to lose our cool, get upset, make mistakes and want to give up. But we must also be patient with ourselves. Remember that we too make progress in a different order and timeline that what we might like.
Give yourself a little grace and keep trying.
