PATIENCE

“Patience is a virtue, and there’s a reason — it’s a tough skill to master”

If we stay at the dictionary’s definition of patience only coward, masochistic and feeble people practice PATIENCE, the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset”.

Sinan Canan gives us a more dynamic, involving and strong meaning: “Remember- he says — that what is called patience is not ‘waiting passively’; it is accepting the situation and continuing to do what is necessary.”

Between these two interpretations, is PATIENCE a virtue?

It is a virtue that sits inside all of us and that is used differently from person to person: this ability to be calm (or lack of it) in the face of obstacles, adversity, delays, frustrations or suffering, depends on personality and it is influenced by the physical and mental status (whether we’re overtired, ill, hungry, stressed, or, even, overheated). Mentally, people who are more positive, optimistic, agreeable, and open to new experiences tend to have more patience. According to research by psychologist Sarah Schnitker, it comes in three main varieties:

1. Interpersonal patience is patience in dealing with other people. Being able to sincerely listen, put the self in another person’s position, control the ego and bring passion and compassion into action are ways to boost the use of patience in such situations
2. Life hardship patience is patience in facing and beating problems, difficulties and obstacles that life places on our ways and it can include the ability to work toward a long-term goal — whether it’s professional, or personal. We must call on Perseverance and Discipline to sustain patience in these circumstances: patience is then the right virtue to generate the right attitude. Not to be discouraged and frustrated (impatience) and not to fall into indolence or sloth (over patience)
3. Situational patience is patience to deal with unpleasant circumstances that are beyond your control: a slow truck in front of us, a long line of cars on the hottest day, the desperate attempt to talk with customer service without being asked to dial zillions of data. The ability to maintain focus, and give to the task the attention it needs to keep emotions under control, is a hallmark of patience.

We should call patience the virtue of developing different solutions to solve problems and making the necessary effort to reach the objectives, over time. Two other overlooked meanings of patience are: a) Give time for something that will happen or will come. B) Abandon resentfulness, even in the face of something that would cause rage.

“When you’re patient, you’re calmer, so you’re able to keep persisting when it’s difficult and you’re not prey to goal disengagement — Sarah Schnitker says — you’re able to know when to act and when to conserve energy.”

Patience, a virtue, and a skill for the education and character-formation of the person together with Perseverance and Determination :

1. A tool for self-control, courtesy, and respect for others.
2. Encouragement to listen in attentive silence, observing and accepting reality without the pressure of immediate response.
3. Skill to make time for better thinking and planning.

How to cultivate patience? Many people become impatient due to physical factors such as hunger, dehydration or fatigue; being in good condition rested and comfortable is a good way to improve the level of patience. Being able to understand “what creates our impatience”.

Then the psychologist recommends: taking deep, slow breaths, and counting to ten — focusing on relaxing your body — forcing yourself to slow down — raising the level of attention, and imagining yourself in the other person’s position.

It would be more accurate to evaluate the virtue of Patience while riding as a way of evaluating and avoiding any danger that may occur, without panic or anger. SIPDE (Scan / Identify / Predict / Decide / Execute) is a good mantra for the exercise of patience

Planning and anticipating possible hazardous situations protect the rider from rushed decisions and impatience. Because you can foresee the dangerous move of another driver instead of getting angry and overreacting to the driver, the patient pilot leaves “that moment” to pass through the brain as an “already predicted possibility.” And the pleasant and smooth riding continues.

When we focus on improving our virtue of patience we can transform it into a talent that grows with our riding competence: an active process of information gathering and action that can be learned, anticipating possible dangers and eliminating them by making the right decisions. This process, the SYSTEM described in the Roadcraft book, can also be learned and developed with conscious practice.

Patience helps us to collect information, patiently wait for new information to add to our riding plan, and calmly choose a safe and stable position with maximum visibility. Impatience will cause the rider to be unable to analyse the situation pushing, ultimately, to take risks. Knowing is the reward of patience. As another fruit of patience, the opportunities of considering “hazards that cannot be seen” will increase.

If we compare safe and advanced riding to a game of chess, we must patiently read the moves of the opponent (other drivers and pedestrians using the road) and build our own game that allows us to win.

Planning for a long ride demands patience as well. Knowing what awaits on the road will eliminate impatience to reach your destination as soon as possible. Delays and unexpected detours, when taken with patience, will turn into part of the trip and part of the “adventure”.

Patience will contribute to our smooth riding as it perfects everybody’s riding plans. Implementing the decisions taken at the right time with the collected information, with patience and without haste and anger, definitely improve the relationship of the rider with other road users, with the machine and with the environment.

The bottom line, Debra R. Comer says, is if you recognize that you’re more irritable, reactive and irascible than you’d like to be, you can change to become better at responding patiently. “But you have to want to change,” she says.

“And you’re going to need to practice — Sarah Schnitker adds — what’s important to remember is that life is full of myriad variables and obstacles, and there’s no way anyone can avoid any situation that might potentially trigger impatience. But you can control your response.”