What is patience if not delusion?
And...the amount of impatience it actually takes to become just patient enough.
“Be patient, give it some time.”
“Don’t rush, you need to wait it out.”
“You are being impatient.”
“Have some patience.”
How many times have we all heard these lines? I swear, for me every now and then they find a way to sneak into almost every conversation, no matter big or small. From waiting to meet the right person, to landing that dream job, to just letting the curry bubble on the stove (or pretending your favorite noodles will actually be ready in two minutes), impatience is a familiar feeling.
But what is patience? Is it the art of quietly enduring, all the while convincing yourself that the outcome you want or rather need is just around the corner? Or is it a collective delusion, the stubborn, sometimes foolish belief that it will work out, simply because we want it to?
Patience gets painted as something noble or peaceful, passive, wise. The truth for me however is that it’s not that pretty. It’s learning to sit with restlessness (though my god, the one I hardly believe in, knows it’s rocket science for me). It’s the countless pep talks you give yourself to hold on just a bit longer. No one tells you how much work it takes to “be patient”, except your therapist and in between this process, you come to realise exactly the amount of impatience hides underneath.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m patient at all. I don’t think I am, at least not fully. But I’m trying. I’m learning. And in the process, I keep returning to a quote that stuck with me:
Patience doesn’t mean to passively endure. It means being farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. To look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn.
That’s the kind of patience I want to practice. Maybe patience is just stalling despair, long enough to spot the smallest bit of hope in a tough moment.
Micro joys help. They really do. Tiny sparks such as tasting noodles before they’re ready just because you’re hungry and you can, laughing at a meme while your job application gets delayed, sending an unfiltered text to a friend or a lover (I always regret this one but do I really?) when your heart can’t take another minute of silence.
So, until I learn how to truly carry patience, I’ll keep reminding myself: it’s okay to be impatient on the inside, as long as I’m holding on to the hope that something beautiful might come at the end of the waiting.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough. At least it is for now. But in the meantime, I will rather scream into the void and let things just be.
Here, you can do that too.
