Patience

Do you ever get impatient?  We all do.  I hate the thought of things taking time and the process of waiting.  I know it’s inevitable but we are so used to instant everything from drive-thrus to social media scrolling, the world is at our fingertips.  Like the old advertising motto for the yellow pages (remember those?)  “Let your fingers do the walking.”  Today, that rings truer than ever.

This is probably also why I don’t enjoy gardening (besides the dirt).  Waiting is required.  You have to wait so long for the stuff to grow and then it doesn’t.  Or it gets destroyed by a nearby creature or your son’s baseball, or, in the case of my zucchini, eaten by worms.  After all that effort you can end up with nothing or very little.  I prefer “gardening lite” which consists of buying a hanging plant and putting it on a hook or planting a few flowers into pots which is strenuous enough.

Exercise is another thing that takes lots of time and perseverance.  About the only physical activity I used to enjoy was swimming laps, but an aging body isn’t kind for that anymore.  Exercise takes months and years of hard work and patience to build health benefits and muscles, if you ever do.  Mostly, I have observed, you just end up with injuries to the overused joints and muscles with questionable or unmeasurable benefit.  How worth it is that?

Cooking? Also not a fan.  I often burn things while I am multi-tasking. To me, few foods are worth eating that are worth the time to make them.  Maybe I need to invest in one of those “instant pots”.

Waiting for my dinosaur computer to load brings out my impatience like nothing else!  Slow grocery store lines and deadlocked traffic jams are no treat either.  If the power goes out, that is indeed the last straw.  Not knowing the length of my long-suffering, is what does me in.

Our impatience gets fueled if we feel that we can’t control the situation, or if things don’t go the way we expect or when we expect.  We get impatient with other people.  We get impatient if we’re running late.  It’s as if we have become slaves to time because we never seem to have enough of it.

Creativity is in order when things don’t go as planned.  If we can pause and enter a calmer state, it will allow us to think more clearly about solutions or how to cope with the challenge at hand.  This will lead to better decision-making and less unnecessary frustration or anger. 

With so many situations that could set us off on any given day, we could change our perspective and focus instead on the things that are worth waiting for.  That answer varies for each one of us, especially when it comes to gardening or exercise, yet there are some things in life most of us would still find worth the wait, such as the arrival of a newborn.  We can’t speed up those nine months, but we can prepare as we wait with joyful expectancy.  (I can assure you, I was not multi-tasking while delivering babies!)

Building relationships, like marriage, takes times but is well worth the effort.  It’s not an accident one of the most popular Bible readings at weddings is 1 Corinthians 13:4  Love is patient love is kind.

Building your business or future nest egg is a good reason to exercise patience and clear thinking.

Don’t let impatience cause you to miss opportunities or just the simple pleasures in each day like stopping to enjoy a flower garden or even the floral area of your favorite grocery store.

However, there are still those times when we don’t have a choice but to be patient because waiting is necessary or can’t be prevented.  Dealing with an illness or injury, hunting for a job, or serious problems our children may be facing are things we cannot control.  We would like a quick fix, but can’t know how long the situation will last. Sometimes we just have to suffer through adversity as best we can.

It is said patience is a virtue but apparently even pharmaceutical companies have no patience when they release injections or medicines to market well before the time needed to research them properly for safety, as we have recently seen with the plandemic.  You can’t speed up time when time is what is needed.  The goal of astronomical profits clouds their better judgment.

So, we need to discern whether our impatience is serving a good purpose or not.  There are those times when impatience can be a good thing.  It can spur us on to finish something that really needs to end, like a bad relationship, a toxic work environment or a nefariously planned “pandemic”.  

So what are we to do when impatience rears its ugly head?

 9 Tips for Combating Impatience

1. First, we need to decide if the effort spent is worth the desired outcome in particular situations. Is it worth standing in a long line to buy one thing you don’t really need?  Is building a business really what you want to do and worth the amount of sacrifice?

2. Learn to recognize when you are feeling impatient.  Is there another response you could have instead?

3. Stop multi-tasking.  Focus on the present moment.

4. Stop worrying about the future.  Instead, set attainable goals and plan wisely for the future which will give you more confidence that things will be ok and you have done all that you could.

5. Try to be more organized and allow yourself enough time to prevent being in a hurry.

6. Have things to do for times when you have to wait. Have music or an audiobook available in the car for traffic jams or long trips.  I enjoy word games, which are easy to load onto your phone for days when you have to wait in a doctor’s office or for your kids to get out of school.

7. Play a little game with yourself to practice patience.  Next time you are in line at the store, practice remaining calm and just look at the things and people around you and think about what they may be going through instead of getting annoyed and upset waiting. Strike up a conversation with someone in line.

8. Accept what you cannot control.  Let go of the control you think impatience is giving you.  Our feelings won’t change a situation.

9. Trust in God and His perfect timing and that He cares for you.

When we learn to cultivate more patience in our lives we will reap the fruits of our efforts.  We will be calmer, happier, healthier and more successful without our impatience getting the best of us.  

We will also be growing in the fruits of the Holy Spirit:  “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, PATIENCE, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”  Galatians 5:22-23

Good things are said to come to those who wait.  Maybe patience is one muscle worth exercising.