Hold up, wait a minute!

As society hurtles toward an ever-growing need for quicker, smarter, more efficient, and more convenient, we lose a precious trait that is underestimated and seemingly of lesser importance.

Stop…. every now and then

Patience.

Unfortunately society has become conditioned to think that we never have enough time.

“There aren’t enough hours in a day!”
“Life’s too short!”
“Time’s a-wastin!”

Where has it gone? I look for patience every day. At the café, at the store, at work, while driving and so on. It’s becoming a rare commodity and if we don’t nurture it, it’ll become as extinct as the dodo.

The good news? We can supply it ourselves. How good is that? It’s not like money where there exists a limited supply. Patience can be created from nothing. Formed and moulded from thin air. This means we the people have an endless supply – if we want it.

In keeping with my Live Simple philosophy, mining patience is really simple to do.

1. Next time you’re waiting in line, let’s say for a coffee, don’t get frustrated at the long line or the person in front of you. It might be the employee’s first day. Maybe the customer at the front of the queue is paying in small coins. Put your energy into thinking of something productive you can do later in the day. You’ll keep your heart rate down and you’ll be ordering your half-decaf, two-sugar, choc-sprinkled, mocha flat cap before you know it!

2. Driving somewhere? Leave a little earlier and be at peace with the speed limit. Sit in the slow lane and cruise. It doesn’t matter if you arrive 3 minutes later than you would have.

3. Is someone at work testing your patience? This is something that happens to me often. But I’ve worked out a way to deal with it: I hold my tongue, retreat to the bathroom, splash cool water on my face, and make a stupid face in the mirror to give myself a chuckle. Works every time! I get back to my desk feeling pretty damn good, and in a much better frame of mind to deal with whatever someone is inevitably about to throw at me.

4. Ever feel like seeing how far you can throw your laptop/ipad/mobile out the window in frustration? You know, when the Internet connection drops out, or your system crashes for no other reason than just because. Turn your device off and go for a walk. Read a book. Turn your attention to something that won’t push your impatience levels through the roof.

5. Be thankful. Being thankful for the smaller, simpler things in life harnesses emotions, and helps develop self-control. Developing self-control can lead to not constantly wanting and needing more and more and more. A lack of self-control, and impatience, is often connected with impulse buying, impulsive addictions, and leads us to think we need more things, and that we need to be somewhere else right now, doing something else right now.

It can be difficult for a lot of people to stay calm and patient sometimes, especially after an extra long day. I’m human. We’re all human (unless this post has been broadcast to outer space). We get frustrated. We get impatient. It can be a natural reaction. But I’m learning more every day that impatience and frustration don’t change anything. They never make a situation better.

For me, the first step is to recognise it. If something makes that ugly angry vein in my forehead pop out and start pulsating, I tell myself that my impatience bubble is about to burst and spew out all over other people. Not cool. Then I quickly ask myself, what can I do to prevent it? It’s a work in progress…

What trivial things get you worked up? How do you deal with your own impatience? What other methods have you found to be really useful to calm yourself down?

Thank you for taking a breather from your day and reading this. I do appreciate your time 🙂