The Power of Patience: How This Old-Fashioned Virtue Can Improve Your Life

When we believe in a happy future, we can wait more calmly now. This takes faith—in ourselves, our partners, our God, the benevolence of the universe—because we have no guarantee one way or another. We must live as if it will turn out, without knowing precisely how it will end up. And that is not always easy, particularly when there’s a lot at stak

Or perhaps the other person represents an aspect of ourselves that we’ve disowned. In psychological terms, this phenomenon is called projection. We get impatient with others who represent aspects of ourselves that we have pushed away or are angry we don’t have.

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead.

Any time we proclaim something boring, what we really are saying is that we don’t have patience for it. Rather than looking at ourselves for the source of the problem—and therefore the solution—we look at whatever is provoking the feeling and label that the problem.

When you come into the present moment as it truly is, there are no problems, “only situations—to be dealt with now, or left alone and accepted as part of the ‘isness’ of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with.”

The most important thing to know is that patience is something you do, not something you have or don’t have.

“Judging others will avail you nothing and injure you spiritually. Only if you inspire others to judge themselves will anything worthwhile have been accomplished.”

that much of life requires waiting and we have a choice to do it happily or miserably.

The beauty of the decision for patience is that it doesn’t matter how impatient we consider ourselves to be. We will always have another opportunity to choose! In whatever circumstance we find ourselves right now, we are free to choose peaceableness. Each and every day, moment by moment, the decision is yours.