Patience is WAY MORE than a virtue.
We have all heard the saying “Patience is a virtue”. Even the saying “Patience is more than a virtue”. But I am here to tell you it is WAY more than a virtue.
Before we go into why I think Patience is WAY more than a virtue,
I would like to give a brief explanation of what a virtue is.
Just for clarity, I guess.
Okay,
When we say virtue, we are essentially talking about a behavior showing high moral standards.
Or.
A quality considered morally good or desirable in a person.
(Credit: Google).
The latter is more the case when talking about patience.
Now that we have established what a virtue is, let’s define Patience shall we. (All about educating the masses. LOL).
Simply put, Patience is the ability to endure difficult circumstances.
Simple but not easy.
That being said, it is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
The others being love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
You might not be so big on the Holy Spirit, Christianity or religion in general.
But you’ve got to agree that the fruits are not looking too bad.
You wouldn’t complain if someone said you had those fruits, would you?
That’s what I thought.
It is believed that Love is the most important of the fruits.
While I understand the reasoning behind that claim, I believe Patience is equally as important, maybe even more.
I am not a guru, and I don’t claim to be an intellectual or whatever. But hear me out.
I believe that you cannot have the other fruits without first getting patience.
Love is Patience
This comes from a passage in the bible that was talking about the qualities of love.
And I agree with the statement a 100%.
Love at first sight is good and all but we all know the ecstasy and pixie dust vanishes at one point.
Then Love begins to feel tedious and heinous.
Monotonous, redundant. You get the gist.
You are put to the test. Your relationship is placed under duress.
Patience determines the duration of your relationship.
If the parties involved are not patient enough, it simply means their “love” wasn’t strong enough.
It wasn’t meant to be.
You can’t love someone if you are not patient with them.
If you can’t exercise patience, then Love isn’t for you.
Plain.
Patience begets joy.
Joy is what we desire.
And Patience is key to achieving that.
Patience boosts self-esteem and overall life satisfaction.
Studies even show that patient people have lower levels of anxiety and depression.
Forget the studies. Let’s try to rationalize the claim.
You have a goal you want to achieve.
What does it take to achieve that goal? Perseverance.
Perseverance is an aspect of Patience.
It isn’t far-fetched to conclude that patient people tend to achieve their goals.
And what is the feeling you get from success, Joy.
Not happiness.
Happiness is not as deep and meaningful as Joy.
Happiness lacks the depth and maturity that Joy stands for.
Joy is selfless. It blossoms in perseverance.
Hence, it blossoms in patience.
Check this post out to learn the difference between Joy and Happiness.
Peace
Patience is being at peace with the process of life.
Patient people are frequently and freakishly peaceful.
They enjoy better mental health than most people because they are not bothered by stress, anger or frustration.
With patience you are able to let go of things beyond your control.
And control what you can. Despite stress and pressure.
In the face of challenges, patient people have what we call inner peace.
Which is truly the most crucial kind of peace.
They have a different outlook to life. It is freakish at times.
Kindness
Patience and kindness go hand in hand.
In order to be kind to someone, one has to be patient when dealing with that person.
Especially in relationships. Patience becomes a form of kindness.
Patient people are selfless people.
“Patience may enable individuals to tolerate flaws in others, therefore displaying more generosity, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness,” write Schnitker and Emmons in their 2007 study.
Some people assume that patient people are lonely.
But it’s quite the contrary.
Infact,
Patient people are less lonely than other people because their entire being, focuses on the positives in people and tolerates the negatives in people.
Patient people are better friends and neighbors.
Gentleness
Patience and gentleness are important traits that tend to go together.
I don’t know if much more can be said to describe this.
As it is quite obvious.
People who are patient are usually gentle. And people who are gentle are usually patient.
An important thing to note is that being gentle, and patient doesn’t mean you are an easy ride.
That is, it doesn’t make you foolish to be patient and gentle.
Like my people will say,
“Gentility ko se stupidity”. (It’s a slang, don’t judge me).
Faithfulness
Faith without patience is a recipe for failure.
Especially in religion.
In Christianity, faithfulness is unwavering loyalty to God.
And without having patience, waiting on the Lord, Christians will falter and have a burnout.
God rewards patience and it strengthens our faith.
Moving away from religion,
For instance,
Staying faithful in Marriage.
Here, faithfulness requires perseverance and dedication to something.
You can only persevere and be dedicated if you are patient enough to stick to something despite the situation you might find yourself.
Self-control
I spoke about something in my last post,
Delayed gratification.
And it’s not a debate that a good level of self-control is needed to delay gratification.
Patience requires individuals to exercise self-control and resist the temptation of instant gratification.
So, if you develop patience, you automatically improve your level of self-control.
Patient people find it easy to make thoughtful decisions and avoid impulsive actions.
This is the Hall mark of a person with high levels of self-control.
And Discipline.
Patience is definitely a gem to have.
And it isn’t so difficult to obtain.
It just requires constant practice, simple but not easy.
It is like a muscle.
In the sense that you need to exercise it to develop it.
I won’t lie to you, I am not where I want to be in terms of being patient.
But I know it’s a process and I welcome the challenge.
If you agree with everything I have said, give me a clap.
And if you don’t, leave a comment telling me why you don’t agree.
I am open to enlightenment.
Till the next post.
