Patience.

Patience means being able to watch things grow. (Also shrink, but that’s the same thing, just with a different goal, an opposite sign, technically speaking.) Impatience, on the other hand, is not just an inability to watch. It’s a form of self-criticism. It says: I missed shaping things I should have. To set them on track. To make them develop properly. And swiftly. And at all.

Seen this way, impatience points to own failures. Not to failures of others causing one’s impatience. (Which is not to say that the others are doing in right ways what they’re doing, let alone have no own faults in their doing so. But this is beside the point here – we’re talking about ourselves, not the others.)

The point is, and that’s good news: Talking about ourselves brings things into the open we can change. Directly. Personally. Now. The »own« is the most direct thing to influence. Nowhere else our impact can be higher. More immediate.

Growing aware of one’s impatience is an important observation. It’s a sign: Change something! If not in charge: Swap focus. If in charge: Don’t look on. Take corrective action. Put an end to the cause taxing your patience.

Here’s what Eckhart Tolle, the psychologist, says:

»Impatience is a kind of complaint. And every complaint is a state of loss: the loss of control, the loss of perspective, the loss of goals and purpose, the loss of being able to solve, the loss to adapt to situations, the loss of being able to change the situation – and / or oneself.«

Of course it’s hard to depict the phenomenon, the feeling, the skill of »Patience«. 

Still: have a look at the three pictures below. Imagine: To help things grow is as easy as the scrolling of your mouse.

Too simple? Maybe. But then: Why have it more difficult? Why think it more difficult? 

Always remember: 

»Things are neither good (easy) nor bad (difficult) – but thinking makes them so.« 

Growth needs patience. Like a photograph, things develop from the dim . . .

. . . to the shadowy . . .

. . . to the clear, fully exposed picture – here, it’s a painting by James McNeill Whistler that’s being exposed.

Two more words:

»Impatience is a kind of complaint. And every complaint is a state of loss: the loss of control, the loss of perspective, the loss of goals and purpose, the loss of being able to solve, the loss to adapt to situations, the loss of being able to change the situation – and / or oneself.«

Eckhard Tolle — Psychologist

»Our weaknesses we let ourselves be accused of; our being chastened for them we endure; our suffering from them we take with great patience. But impatient we grow the very moment we ought to let go of them.«

Goethe — Wahlverwandtschaften