Being a Father and a Farmer can be a struggle - Patience

The most bipolar of my struggles in life is patience. On one hand I get extremely impatient with many things and people in life, yet when it comes to the garden I am generally only impatient to plant seeds. I understand implicitly that plants have to grow over time and that there is nothing I can do to rush that process, at least feasibly. Translating this to other parts of my life is the lacking part of my person.

“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”
― Molière ⁽¹⁾

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
― Aristotle ⁽¹⁾

Many trees grow slowly and form outstanding fruit in their later years but that bitterness of patience is complimented nicely by the sweetness of the fruit. Children's growth is rapid but also slow, so the patience needed can at times feel overwhelming. There is a disconnect in me between my interaction with my garden and my interaction with most everything else around me. I can find seemingly infinite patience for plants, but my patience with people is pretty low.

The disconnect might be that there is a logical progression from seed to plant to produce, where children don't have that same logical progression. The steps that a child takes on the path of growth rarely form a straight line, and we don't really want them to. Part of the human experience is to try and fail, not to do it right the first time every time. This point is one that slides into my life every now and then, the expectation of perfection when there is no basis for the expectation.

“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.”
― David G. Allen ⁽¹⁾

Logic is not something that we are inherently born with, it must be learned, experienced, cultivated. The same goes for patience. Babies are not born with patience, we have not found a "patience" gene yet that denotes a predilection towards being a patient person. Most of the traits/skills/ticks that humans have are learned in one fashion or another. Teaching these is a matter of the pupil's ability to intake and actualize the lessons, but I must make sure that I allow for the variance of learning styles. Remaining patient with my children when they do things "out of order" is difficult but integral to their learning.

There is logical progression from one stage to the next in many subjects in life. One generally learns the basics before progressing to the intermediate or advanced portions of a subject. This has been the standard paradigm of learning for millennia. Now that we have this incredible technological advance, it may be time to rethink the methods in which learning happens. The change is taking place rather slowly right now but that is only because the infrastructure and modalities are not universal. We still have DOS running most learning when Quantum computing is here now.

“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”
― Edmund Burke ⁽¹⁾

My impatience very often leads to the application of force. This application has varying degrees of success but most often seems to result in failure or degradation instead of building up. "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar" is a very appropriate saying and applies perfectly to this situation. Children, and people in general do not respond well to force, so patience will help to keep a calm situation and learning environment.

“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.”
― Hal Borland ⁽¹⁾

Understanding and actualizing are two VERY different things. I understand the meaning of a great many things in life, that doesn't mean that I have made that understanding a part of my daily life, of who I am and how I react to various situations. My garden has taught me that persistence does pay off with a bountiful harvest, and I am starting to see that with my children. The small seeds that we sow early on do manifest themselves into the personality, emotions, the reactions that our children possess. I am trying to be both tree and grass, to have the patience to always be there and the persistence to always come back.

“Have patience with all things but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You are perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumphs or tribulations can ever change that.”
― Saint Frances de Sales ⁽¹⁾

The act of being patient seems to be easier with anything outside of myself. My internal struggle of impatience can have outwards effects on everything around me, and myself. Impatience is a form of stress and the more stress in our lives, the worse our lives tend to be, and the worse we can make others' lives around us. I am trying to be more conscious of these facts and be more aware in general. One of the most appropriate lines I have ever heard, "How can you expect to help others if you can't help yourself?".

Source
¹ - https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/patience

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You can read my blog series here:

Being a Father and a Farmer can be a struggle	Gardener Gripe - "#gardenergripe"
Time	#1.0 - Back Pain
Expectations	#2.0 - Weeds
	#3.0 - Pests - Gophers

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