Patience is number three of my seven essential virtues for leading a good life. Every Wednesday I start my day with the following prayer:
- Give me the patience to avoid judging others today and forgive me for those times when I fail.
Years ago, I would give give an annual safety lecture for friends in our motorcycle club. One year, I started my lecture off with the comment that “You should never run a green light!” “You mean red light” someone replied. “No, I mean green light. This comment seems confusing at first thought, since it is perfectly legal to “run” a green light.
Before, I explain my logic behind the red light versus green light comment, let me give you a little test to see how patient you are. I will do this by way of posing three scenarios. I will suggest some possible paths that you could take in each scenario. You select the action that you would be most likely to take or that perhaps you usually take. I will then give you a score for each possible path. The scores will point to your “patience quotient.”
People waiting in line with shopping baskets at grocery store
The first scenario involves a common enough occurrence in most of our lives. You have finished your grocery shopping and now need to find a cashier to check out with. Today, there are only six lanes open and the lines seem to be somewhat disproportionate in length. Do you?
A. Try to find the shortest line before moving your cart into position
B. Simply take the first line you come to
C. Hang back and see if they will open another line
D. Get into one line but hop over to another line if it seems to be moving faster
Our second scenario involves going to church service. At the end of many services, the minister (Do Rabbis and Imams do this?) will wait at the door and greet the outgoing parishioners. Do you?
A. Wait in line and wonder why the heck they have to do this
B. Get in line and look forward to greeting the minister
C. See if you can find another door to exit by
D. Say some prayers in your pew until the line shortens
Our third and final scenario finds us on our ubiquitous freeway system wending our way to some appointment that we will probably be late to if the traffic stays so slow. Do you?
A. Silently curse the other drivers on the road
B. Try to find the fastest lane
C. Simply resign yourself to being late and stay in one lane
D. Weave in and out to get ahead of the other traffic
If you selected, D for 1, C for 2, and D for 3. You have a patience problem. On the other hand, if you selected B for 1, B for 2 and C for 3, you should be writing this blog and not me. All other choices put you somewhere between patient and impatient. You decide and be honest where you are at on this continuum.
It is has been said that Patience is the greatest of all virtues, but I will not argue that point because it is meaningless. Patience can save your life. Patience can save your sanity and Patience can save your soul. These three facts are cause enough to consider that Patience should rank at least among the top virtues in terms of importance. How high it should rank for you will depend on how you rated yourself on my scenarios. For instance, if you weave in and out of traffic trying to get someplace a few seconds or even minutes faster, you not only endanger your own life but you endanger the lives of other people. You have a Patience problem.
Patience can save your life because as the saying goes “Haste makes waste.” How many people have died because they could not wait? They were so impatient and they just had to take the shortcut. Whether it involved shutting the electricity off before doing some repairs, waiting for someone to hold a ladder for them or taking their time crossing the road by looking both ways, impatience costs lives. You will live longer if you are more patient.
“He that can have patience can have what he will.” ― Benjamin Franklin
“Patience can save your sanity, because you will be living a pretty stressful life it other people’s actions can dictate your feelings. If you get mad in lines at the behaviors of people who take too long or have too many coupons, you will be habitually angry. If you get mad at “inconsiderate” other drivers, you will be stressed whenever you set foot in a vehicle. If your expectations of people mean that they should help you to save time in your life, you will most likely die from a premature heart attack.
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.” — Leo Tolstoy
Patience can save your soul. A good person is someone who can have empathy for others. Other people make mistakes. Other people are late. Other people may not plan as well as you do. Other people may be preoccupied and seem inconsiderate. If you lack patience, you lack empathy for others. Lacking empathy for humanity is a sure way to become calloused and soulless. A spiritual person does not judge others and as Jesus said:
“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” — Matthew 7:1
So why should you never run a green light. Well, the answer is simple. How many times have you sat at a light and watched some frenzied driver try to beat the light and fail? How many times have you seen someone run a red light while you were waiting to enter the intersection? How many times might you have been killed if you had been in the intersection when the other party ran the red light? In each of these cases, the light would have been green when you started through the intersection.
I always make a point of slowly entering an intersection after a light changes as opposed to gunning my engine and racing though the intersection. This simple thought of “never running a green light” has saved my life more times than I can count both when I was on my motorcycle and in my car. This was my point at our motorcycle safety meeting that day and everyone nodded thoughtfully after I had explained why you should “never run a green light.”
Time for Questions:
How did you do on my three scenarios? How patient a person are you? What would you have to do to become more patient? What is stopping you?
Life is just beginning.
“Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess”
Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.
Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples’ affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.
Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.
Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains — they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.
I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn’t agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.
Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint — it is so hard to live with some of them — but a harsh old person is one of the devil’s masterpieces.
Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so.
Amen”
― Margot Benary-Isbert
Aging Capriciously 