“Patience is the companion of wisdom.” Saint Augustine
Imagine this if you will. Your elderly grandma asks you to take her to the grocery store because she doesn’t drive. You already know that this little shopping trip will be more than just an in and out ordeal (as you would prefer it to be) but because you love her you agree to take her. 2.5 hours later you are finally in the check out isle ready to leave. You pull up the car, gently assist her into the vehicle and frantically throw the bags into the backseat. In her soft, precious voice she asks, “Kristen, can you take me… and I have to also go… and can you drop this off at…” With a grin that appears to be a smile, you patiently say, “yes, grandma. No problem!” In the meantime you have 5 missed calls, an appointment to get to across town and a snow storm is heading your way. You prepare by reminding yourself this is great quality time with grandma and all of the sudden quality time turns into stress and rushed time. Grandma doesn’t know it because you want to make her happy but inside your stomach is turning because you have so much to do in so little time. When it’s time to drop grandma off at the house, you unpack all her bags, throw the items in the refrigerator and she says, “Oh no Kristen! I forgot toilet paper.”
I can’t tell you how many times I have been in this situation. It’s funny to look back and think about all the times I lost my patience; waiting for someone to pick me up and they were 30 minutes late (and yet they were doing me a favor), sitting in traffic yelling at the cars in front of me (when they were just as late as I was), staring at the clock in class because I just wanted to get out of there (but yet I was paying money to be there), changing subjects mid conversation with someone because I had heard the story 10 x already… I could definitely keep going!
When I started to understand how toxic impatience can be to relationships, it forced me to think more deeply about how I approach daily tasks and interactions with people. Contrary to what I wanted to believe, impatience is a major personality flaw. Impatient people appear to be more frustrated, insensitive, overbearing and sometimes arrogant. People who are impatient often interrupt others, walk at a speedy pace, always appear to be on edge, rushed and stressed. I know this because I have been there. In fact, I have to remind myself often to practice patience because impatience is such a strong personality flaw that I do have. However, a lot of my impatience is internal that builds up from stress. I let it manifest in my gut and eventually it comes out in the form of a negative attitude towards others. Can anyone else relate?
I have so much respect for someone with a lot of patience. Dictionary.com says patience is an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay or to endure discomfort without complaint. Patient people have a quiet and calm demeanor, they steadily persevere, are even tempered, great listeners, maintain composure when faced with difficult situations and tend to be more emotionally stable people. I think a lot of us could agree that we often fall into both categories depending on the situation. And while writing this, I had to ask myself which category I would fall into most often. Just like everything in LIFE, patience is a skill that needs to be learned. Here are some things I do to ‘slow down’ and practice patience:
- Go for a walk or a run – great anxiety and stress reliever
- Read – specifically scripture or books that focus on personal development
- Call a mentor or friend – sometimes you just need to vent
- Help/serve someone else
- Listen to audios or uplifting music
- Write
Some of you may have children or a spouse and that requires even more patience 😉 so you may have different strategies than I do. But I am sure all of us could stand to work on our patience and find ways to slow down. Check out how patient this amazing dog is for this cute little boy who just wanted to stop and play in the puddle:
Too cute, I know! But we can learn a lot from these little guys too. Relationships are important to me and I believe impatience can be most detrimental when it affects our interactions with others. We have such great examples in the-life-business of men and women such as Orrin and Laurie Woodward, Chris and Terri Brady, George and Jill Guzzardo and all of the LIFE founders who practice patience with humility and grace. They live by the principle in scripture, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12
I hope that you will join me in the development of patience as we venture out into a hurried world and affect change in the lives of many people.
Blessings,
Kristen
What a great piece… so thought provoking!!! I was so blessed that I had so much quality time with both of my grandmothers. Thank you for slowing me down to visit memory lane!!! Patience is definitely one of my character flaws that I attempt to work on daily. We live in a juggling, now now now society! This video is one of my favorites with so many lessons! I love that you saw the patience of the faithful companion. I also saw that sometimes we need to just stop, go back and have some fun, jump in the puddles, everything that is important to us will still be there, patiently waiting for us. Live life choice driven!!! Thank you for sharing!! Be Blessed, Candace
Wow Candace, great insight! You are right patience is a choice and whether we choose to stress about things or remain calm the outcome usually remains the same. Eventually the traffic will clear, the person will show up & we will make it to our scheduled destinations. It’s something I need to remind myself often. Thanks for your great comment!
well done kristen!
I am probably the most impatient person any of you will ever know, but by the same token, I do not want somebody losing patience with me because of one of my character flaws. Walking, reading, writing, do take the edge off. It doesn’t pay to stew about it because that time is gone forever. The leadership skills we are learning certainly help and am better than I was. I need to get better if someday I am going to lead 100 people.
Absolutely Randy you are making huge strides. Proud of you
Patience is a virtue. Thank you for the reminder.
Galatians 5:22-23 – George, you model patience better than anyone I know!
Kristen what a great commentary. This is a real issue in our society. The microwave mindset undermines so many. In his book “the life you’ve always wanted” john ortberg calls this “hurry sickness” and like you say it comes at us in all aspects of our lives. You give great examples of how to train ourselves to improve our patience. He(the author) offers one more: next time you are in the grocery store pick the checkout line with most people, go stand in that line, then let someone get in line in front of you….this is a real test but over time can yield an improvement in patience. This is the lesson for life..there are no shortcuts. Time must be spent learning, trying,failing, relearning in pursuit of success. Kristen you like the great leaders in the life business are showing how to do that. Again to quote Ortberg”any truly meaningful human accomplishment will require perserverence. In James 1:2-4 it is said this way”consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that testing of your faith produces perserverance. Let perserverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Thank you so much Kristen for your example
Great comments Matt and awesome to hear your insight! You hit the nail on the head! Very proud of you and all that you continue to do!
Great reminder- patience truly is a virtue. I get to practice it everyday with the little ones I teach. Tying shoes, fixing hair ribbons, waiting for one of them to stand up from laying down, getting back from the bathroom or turning the knob on the bubbler to get a drink of water~all with the thought in the back of my mind that we just have to get this lesson started. Really? What’s more important~ letting them tell me a story of when Grandma took them to the store, they lost a tooth, the dog jumped up on them with muddy paws, or 2 extra minutes of teaching them how to dribble a basketball…? If anyone ever needs a lesson in patience, volunteer at an elementary school. It will definitely be a test of patience, but one of the greatest joys of your life. Thanks again for the blog on patience. We all need the reminder. And that is just about the cutest video ever!
God Bless!
You are absolutely right Joanne! Working in an elementary school is the true test of patience. I got my taste of that for a little while.. You are blessing those little ones lives. They won’t remember the 2 extra minutes of dribbling a ball but they will remember how you make them feel 🙂 you have the patience of a champ!
Oh how we at i can relate. This truly is something I need to work on daily, thanks for the insight.Oh yeah dogs have somethi9ng to teach no doubt.
For sure Bill, dogs teach us so much about life!
This is awesome! I can remember being so impatient before LIFE! Thanks for the article!
Amazing what new information can do!
Great post, Kristen! I still have alot of work to do in the patience category (amongst many others). It is a true test of where our heart is and whether we are being selfish or not. LIFE teaches us to keep the focus on others, and having patience is a huge part of that.
Absolutely Larry, from my perspective you are such a patient man and I know it is because you are continually working on yourself so you can serve more. So proud to know you and be your friend!