How Patience Works

I’ve been thinking about the whole patience-is-a-virtue thing.

I have become increasingly convinced that it’s a delightful scam.

The more that I look at the evidence of my own life, patience seems to be an obstacle to overcome.

My life is full of things that I’ve done patiently.

I’ve read.
I’ve hustled.
I’ve meditated.
I’ve woken up early.
I’ve practiced gratitude.
I’ve written morning pages.
I’ve walked, run, lifted, huffed, puffed, and heaved.

And through this set of patient practices, I’ve become very good at creating dull, monotonous chores that haven’t actually resulted in any meaningful arrival.

“No no!” I hear you say,

“You haven’t been patient for long enough!”

When you worship at the altar of patience, the answer to the question “why haven’t I gotten anywhere?” will always be “Because you have not been patient enough!”

Despite being unprovable, this seems like good common sense.

But a question still begs to be asked.

All the while, as you patiently practice being patient, your life trickles away.

But how long are you prepared to wait on the promise of patience?

A year?

A decade?

For forty years?

After a lifetime, while you sit in the nursing home?

Is that really a risk you’re willing to take?

But let’s be honest with each other.

It’s just you and me right now.

The question is not what to do instead of being patient.

The question is why you default to patience in everything that you do.

The reason why you are prepared to be patient is simple:

Because if they were, you’d do anything to get there.

Not in a year.

Now.

This is pretty easy to prove.

Imagine that everything you value was going to be taken away from you.

Or your family was destitute and starving in the streets.

Or your very life was in danger…

I doubt very much you’d respond patiently.

You’d be very definitely urgent.

When you think about it, the problem isn’t that life is too short.

It’s that life is too long.

When there’s the promise of another 50 years, there seems like there’s plenty of time to “be patient”.

There’s an important thing to clarify here.

This is not to say that you can cheat nature.

You won’t become Roger Federer over night because you really, really want it.

This isn’t magic. But being impatient over the speed by which the tree grows and tugging at it to make it grow faster is just being kinda dumb.

Don’t concern yourself with the speed of nature. That’s none of your business.

Your business is acting in accordance with nature.

Skill takes time to master.

Relationships take time to build.

Wisdom matures over time.

But sincerity doesn’t follow these rules.

A sincere quest bursts into flame the instant that it reaches the point of combustion.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything.

Be patient if you want.

Be urgent if you prefer.

But it seems to me that pretty good advice is to look at where you are being patient and asking whether you are really getting anywhere.