“Patience is a virtue.”

One of the most memorable phrases said to me as a child. I cannot even begin to count the number of times my parents uttered those words to me in an attempt to diffuse my overexcitement or quell my pestering. I would always slump my shoulders in response and have a little sulk about the injustices in the world. Why had God let them hold my Nintendo DS Lite hostage and prevent me from playing Nintendogs for another 10 minutes? Oh, the cruel realities of life!

It wasn’t until recently that I started to really appreciate it.

There are different interpretations of what “patience is a virtue” means. Some people view the phrase to be another incarnation of “good things come to those who wait”, but I slightly disagree. The idea of waiting for good things to happen is too passive for my liking, having patience isn’t just about being able to sit tight whilst the world keeps spinning. I think Wikipedia provides a pretty good definition of what patience is.

“Patience is the ability to endure difficult circumstances such as perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in annoyance/anger”

Nothing in life comes free, everything takes work and as humans, we are constantly growing and developing. In the past few weeks, I have heard a number of people say the phrase “if you’re not growing you’re dying” and I believe this to have a significant level of truth to it. The type of patience I’m talking about is having patience with yourself and with your pursuits, in spite of what the world may throw at you. Life rarely goes at your own pace at times it seems like progress is painfully slow, or the obstacles are too great. Patience is vital in achieving the end goal. I’ll admit that sometimes it does require us to sit around and wait, but often it requires us to decelerate and take time to grow and develop without relenting our pursuits. I think that this type of patience is something that the younger generations find hard to achieve; or at least something I personally struggle with.

I have the attention span of a toddler. I really struggle with focus. If something doesn’t fully engage me within the first 5 minutes, I begin to multitask, and my mind drifts off elsewhere. I have a knack for picking up new skills, so I like to go around trying new things. While this is good in some ways, what I find is that once I have gotten as far as my raw talent and natural instincts will take me, I move on. I run from the struggle. It’s the mentality that anything that doesn’t come easy to me isn’t worth my time, and this is rooted in a lack of patience.

Mainly it’s a lack of patience with myself. I truly believe that I am my greatest foe. Annoyance with myself and my inability to pick things up at the level of ease I am comfortable with has been one of the biggest oppositions to my progression.

Those who know me know that I’m a hard worker, but I’ve come to realise that I only have patience for things I deem vital to my advancement in life. Primarily this is my education. I don’t have the same patience when it comes to my hobbies. I think it’s because nothing is at risk; for example, nothing in my life is dependent on me being able to play the saxophone well. Whilst, if I fail a module at uni, I fail my year, potentially get kicked off of my course and left with student debt. The inability for me to spend time really developing my skills outside of academia has definitely been problematic for my growth. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I don’t work hard outside of school life, but I lack the ability to endure the challenges that come with developing new skills. This is an issue, as recently it became apparent to me that you can only reap the fruit of hard work if you have patience. So, in other words, I’m burning myself out and gaining nothing in return.

The nature of our society doesn’t really help us with the issue of impatience. Nowadays we have the world at our fingertips. We see our phones deliver information to us at 300MB/s but don’t appreciate the hours spent by the authors producing the articles we read or the websites we visit.

I have the same issue with Instagram fitness posts. I see the before and after and think to myself “I want that”, but I don’t appreciate the effort taken in between and personal resilience required to achieve the results.

Currently, I am reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’, and one thing that truly astounds me is his commitment to the struggle. The man spent his life pursuing racial equality, endured 27 years of imprisonment and had to hear about the persecution his wife and family experienced while miles away from them, knowing he was helpless to do anything about it. That shows real character and a strong combination of drive and patience. His time in prison really highlighted the importance of being patient but not passive. Whilst incarcerated there was not much he could do to influence the outside world and continue fighting the struggle on a nationwide scale, but he didn’t just sit tight and wait. He decided to fight for rights in the prison. It was a combination of persistence and patience. You can’t force change in anyone or anything but yourself, and even then, change doesn’t happen overnight. Mandela is a great example of someone who was persistent in pursuing his desire despite enduring difficult circumstances. Even when face to face with persecutors and provocateurs, he kept his calm. He knew that throwing a tantrum and giving up only did harm to himself and his cause.

Most of us aren’t facing battles anywhere as big as Mandela’s fight against the apartheid, but the same principles apply. To experience growth and change, patience is a key factor. Even if the struggle seems trivial, it may actually be of huge benefit in inconceivable ways. The ability to endure difficult circumstances without responding with anger or annoyance is a tough skill to grasp but integral in life. After all, patience is a virtue. But more importantly, patience is often the key to progression.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

– Nelson Mandela