Why is patience a virtue?
Now who said patience is a virtue? In my research I was not successful at finding the origin of the phrase or motto from a reliable source , but I know like me, many of have heard the phase before.
In this post, I plan to explain my thoughts and reasons for why I feel patience is a virtue.
According to Dictionary.com, simply put patience is an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay. Virtue refers to moral excellence, goodness and righteousness.
I have learned that patience is not necessarily something you have or don’t have, but rather something you do. Now, with this being said we understand that everybody is different and some people are better at “doing” patience than others, but we can all develop patience with practice.
We live in an environment where time equals money and modern technologies have spoiled us, allowing us to do more and accomplish more in less time with less effort. For example, would you believe that…
– A popular Tokyo all you can eat buffet charges by the minute, the faster you eat the cheaper it is.
– High rise developers have discovered an upward limit to the amount of floors a building should have by the amount of time a people would be willing to wait for elevators.
– People are getting killed in construction areas because some people were not willing to get somewhere ten seconds a mile later!
This just goes to show how our level of patience affects us and the world.
Patience is a virtue because it makes us better people. It makes us better people because it implies self control and tolerance, the capacity to stop and be in the moment. It gives us self control and tolerance for situations and people, especially those situations and people who are out of OUR control. Did you catch that “out of OUR control”. Yes, I said it, I know it may be hard to believe but my current theory on patience involves/ includes our fight to constantly be in control. Think about it… when you are in control by your standards, don’t you feel that everything would always run smoothly, people would always do what you want the way you want and things would always work out the way you want it to with you prompting it. What happens when things and people are out of OUR control???…We may possibly lose control, …if… we don’t have patience.
Patience helps us be more loving towards others, more at ease with the circumstances of our lives, and more able to get what we want by giving us the stick-to-it-ness we need to work steadily towards our goals and dreams whatever they are.
Patience also gives us calmness of spirit. Instead of getting angry, in a panic, or becoming fearful we are able to put things into some kind of perspective that allows us to keep our cool.
By having patience you can bring comfort to yourself and those around you when things go awry.
Lastly, patience helps us accept with grace and dignity obstacles in our path, on our journey through life. We respond to life’s challenges with courage, strength and optimism. Being patience doesn’t mean we have to always like what’s going on, but we recognize we don’t have to add to the madness and add additional suffering to the mix. Patience helps us to have empathy for others, understanding as human beings we all have limitations. It gives us the emotions resilience to respond with kindness and love.
Now you know where I stand on patience. Patience is a virtue. A virtue that is developed and if used can lead us to persistence, serenity, and acceptance. And ultimately happy lives that spill over onto others.
