PATIENCE WINS: HOW TO DEVELOP PATIENCE

Great Minds,

Today I look back at certain events in my life and all I can say is surely PATIENCE WINS. Sometimes, I would feel like being cheated in life. At times I would want to acquire certain things now now and when not so, frustration and demoralisation would set in. Not until later on I would get to understand and perhaps get a better option or opportunity. Then my eyes will be opened to see and realise that it pays to be patient. A lot of people had died before their time of manifestation, a lot had lost hope and became frustrated in life all because they could not endure, they could not wait a little. They were simply impatient. I was in that category before, so I can say. But thank God who has giving me hope and more so blessed me with this beautiful virtue patience.

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In this piece, I will attempt to discuss patience as a winning virtue in the battle of life. In doing this, I shall define patience and try to draw in instances where patience save the day and therefore why it is imperative we imbibed the habit or rather the virtue of patience in us in order to win the challenges of life. I will also put forward ways patience can be developed.

PATIENCE DEFINED
Simply put "patience is waiting without complaint".
Patience is the capacity to take, endure, accept or tolerate delay, challenges, problems, or suffering without becoming overly worried, annoyed or anxious. Online dictionary puts it this way "the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like." In other words, it is an ability or strength to suppress anxiety or annoyance when confronted with delay. Wikipedia describes patience as forbearance and further defined it as the state of endurance under difficult circumstances such as: persevering in the face of delay; provocation without acting on negative annoyance/anger; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties.

THE NEED FOR PATIENCE

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I took time to present the various definitions to further buttress the quality and the necessity of patience if one must win. You see the life and the world we live in is full of challenges, problems and provocations from different angles and there are lot of difficulties that we faced in our daily endeavours. So much so that you will break down, become frustrated and lose grip of your very life if you are to act, react, get annoyed or become anxious in the face of these rough circumstances. All you need to stay through, to survive and consequently wins is to persevere in the face of these difficulties, and exercise restraint and hold on, be patient and surely you will overcome and win.

It is important to state that patience is difficult hence, why we are always impatience and the more reason why we must learn and adopt the act of patience. Patience is difficult for the following obvious reasons.
First, "All human beings are sinners and therefore selfish and annoying." But a psychological explanation also helps to explain why patience is so challenging. It concerns what philosophers call the "egocentric predicament," which is the natural human condition of being immediately aware only of one's own thoughts and feelings.

When standing in line or waiting in traffic, for example, all the people who are waiting are equally as worthy to get what they wait for or to arrive at their destinations. I know, however, only my own thoughts and am intimately aware of only my own needs, which naturally incline me to put myself first. The result is frustration that I'm not first, and this strongly tempts me to be impatient.

A second reason why patience is such a challenge is that none of us struggle with precisely the same temptations as do other people. Nor are our particular strengths and weaknesses the same as those of others. One person is even tempered and can't understand why her friend flies off the handle at times. But the person with the bad temper cannot understand how her even keeled friend can be habitually late to meetings. And both of them get annoyed at a third friend's tendency to overeat. This is, of course, another aspect of the egocentric predicament. None of these friends knows what it's like to have the others' peculiar weaknesses. Nor does each comprehend how much effort the others are exerting in order to be as moral as they are, for it's not immediately apparent how hard the others work to control themselves. The result, again, is the temptation to become impatient with them.

PATIENCE WINS THE BATTLE

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They say patience is a virtue. In times of difficulties, panic, anxiety or sudden change, it is the patient person who is grounded, able to smile in the face of whatever is transpiring, and who continues to move forward toward the destination and direction he or she is pursuing. The key to having patience with anything is to be patient with yourself and with each moment.
Patience is that quiet confidence that helps you hold it all together in moments of challenges and in times of change. According to Wilson Churchill, patience is that still small voice inside that says, “Keep calm and carry on".

In our instant gratification society today, we want answers right now, resolutions to our conflicts and frustrations, and ultimately closure to those problems that feel like they could crush us and our spirits. In the face of all these, be patient, smile and acknowledge yourself for the small steps you take and keep on taking them. Inch by inch, yard by yard, you will only be able to succeed if you continue forth and don’t give in or give up.
When you are faced with a sudden challenges or any difficult situation, remember that you really do have an unlimited supply of patience available to you.

HOW TO DEVELOP PATIENCE

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For the majority of us, patience doesn’t come easily. And when it does come, it’s often fleeting. The rest of the time, we rush, we interrupt, we get exasperated when people squeeze ahead of us in line, we charge things now rather than paying cash later, we curse drivers who impede our progress in the fast lane.
From decisions made in haste to words spoken without reflection, impatience can cause a vast amount of pain, waste and damage that irreparable.

Fortunately, even if we aren’t born with a great deal of patience, it’s a virtue that even the most agitated among us can develop, according to American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. It’s a skill, she asserts, one that we can hone with focus and practice.

In a talk Chödrön gave in 2007 titled “Don’t Bite the Hook” she outlines three methods for developing patience. She explains that the key to cultivating more patience — whether you’re in a long line in traffic — lies in finding new ways of perceiving your predicament. The following are suggested ways to develop patience

1. Start perceiving things differently. Negative thoughts set in when the body start feeling discomfort and frustrating thoughts about how something or somebody should be moving faster or doing something differently begin to roll in. It is these thoughts that cause problems. Our conscious mind is searching for an object to put the blame on for our initial discomfort, but this only makes matters worse, because it’s like “pouring kerosene on a fire to put it out.”

What works better is to see things differently, to reframe irritating or those challenging circumstances. There are easy tips to achieve this;

Bypass blame:
Rather than faulting anyone in particular for the fact that you have to wait or adjust your plans, try entertaining the notion that the delay just is. Who knows, it may even turn out to be to your advantage: If not for the wait, perhaps you might have encountered a bigger problem — or accident — instead.

Be thankful for small blessings: If you’re stuck in a traffic jam, and you have a cell phone that allows you to call and explain your delay to whoever is waiting for you, that’s a blessing. And once you make that call, you’re free to begin embracing more blessings, like the opportunity to listen to some great music while actively strengthening your patience muscles.

Write your own history:
Keep in mind that you are always authoring your own experience. Eventually, the irritating circumstances you are dealing with will be over, and you’ll be left with the choices you made in the interim. Do you want to look back on losing your cool at the traffic or do you want to look back on having made an honorable, embarrassment free escape from a bad situation? The choice is yours.

1. Expand Your Empathy
   Learn to see the complexity of a situation. This means understanding that human beings live complicated lives in a complex universe, all the variables of which we can’t possibly know or appreciate in the moment. Just remembering this fact may allow us to amplify our sense of empathy with others, and thus to soften a little.

2. Get Patience from Positivity
   It’s easier to have patience when we’re awash in good feelings. When we’re newly in love, for example, it seems like nothing can disturb our sense of well-being. Late busses, long waits for restaurant tables, canceled flights — we take them all in stride.

When we are feeling generally happy, our ability to comfortably tolerate annoyances skyrockets. We can use that dynamic to our advantage in pursuit to develop patience

This doesn’t involve gritting our teeth and bearing reality. On the contrary, it involves actively noticing and cultivating positive feelings. To begin, Chödrön suggests paying attention to pleasant, everyday sensations and experiences, like the pleasure of eating when you’re hungry, putting warm socks on cold feet, or seeing a beautiful bank of clouds in the sky.

There will always be things that push us to impatience. But practicing with little worry and annoyances and taking utcstepwisely we can build a greater capacity for humor and perspective overall. So when the big challenges come along, there’s grace waiting for you.
Always remember, " the patient dog eats the fattest bone.
The truth remains if our eyes were to be opened perhaps spiritually to see beyond the now to know what awaits us in the future, surely we will wait. But since this is not possible, it is only important we wait.

BE PATIENT AS YOU STEEM ON

Some folks join steemit with the hope to making quick money, in fact the mindset most people join steemit is that once you post you can roll in better dollars. So a lot got frustrated when after one two or more posts and nothing is forthcoming. Some left while others persisted and so far those that persisted now have better understanding of how it works and can make reasonable earnings from their posts. While the impatient ones left frustrated and without any knowledge.

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REFERENCES

1. http://jenniferswilkov.com/patience-wins-every-time/

2. https://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/articles/spiritualformation/virtue-of-patience.html

Thank you for reading

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