…That patience is a virtue?
Who has the time for virtue?
I kid. Actually patience is a practical practice in diversion and the perpetual classroom for living in the moment. For most, nay… many… patience is not something to be struggled with, but instead the default programming. For others it is a toil in existence and often a losing battle.
For me it is a study in awareness and an understanding within myself. It becomes about the spiritual balance I cultivate for daily activity and is lost when that balance is not evident. I am a patient man in the majority of my daily activity and thought… but like an occasional set of keys, patience can be lost.
…but, thus far, never lost for good.
I remember a time in my early sobriety when I had a sponsor who thought it wise to advise me to “pray for patience.” Night after night I did what I was told and got on my knees to ask my higher power for the patience that I was instructed to pray for.
Be careful what you ask for.
It was back then that a key was learned for me. Why pray for patience when the only result would be to experience a world that requires it? That was not the answer (nor for that matter was the praying but that is another blog entirely…)
The answer has become not to look for patience… but instead to look for peace. No patience is required in a peaceful place. Acceptance really is the answer to all our problems. Granted… some days (and things) are FAR easier to be accepting about… and somewhere in between the understanding acceptance provides and the awareness and ability to maneuver through the tricks and surprises of a normal life (and what we believe is not what we want to happen) lies a happy land that doesn’t require patience.
My life has been one big expectation for a very long time. I don’t always live by the rules I have set for myself and I have not been tolerant of the world around me as I built the plans, hopes and frustrated goals far out ahead on a path that was not yet clear… or necessarily mine. This doesn’t mean that I am not going to walk down a path that provides any of these pieces of the dream… but the fact must always remain that the moment is most important. Where I am and what I am doing holds valuable clues and steps towards where I want to be. When I get there, eventually, I will need to fall back on those clues and steps. If it seems like I am not in the moment and I want to be somewhere that I am not it is time to remember that… patience is a virtue.
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.