Happy people tend to be content and grateful. “People are not grateful because they are happy. People are happy because they are grateful.”37

kind of weather. There is no place for her to escape. So often you cannot do anything about external circumstances, but you can always do something about what is going on in your mind.

The things that are out of my control are primarily the ones that can most anger me. I know I am not in charge of how someone else thinks or sees me. I am only in charge of what I think and how I see me. Once I bring this to mind patience is restored. —A WISE FRIEND

Look at them, recognize them, and say to them, I know you, you are a feeling. You are fear; you are doubt; you are anxiety. You have no power unless I hold on to you, and I choose to let you go.

Sharon Salzberg states it this way: “I see patience as the relinquishing of wanting to be in control, of wanting something not to be there.

If you observe a thought or a feeling and do not cling to it or create scenarios around it, it has a short life span and will fade away. Over time you will see this through your practice of watching countless thoughts and feelings arise and die away.

No matter what the external circumstances, your impatience can only exist within you. You develop patience by working on yourself, not by attempting to change others.

If you send a lot of e-mails, every time you are about to press the Send button, think, patience. • If you make phone calls regularly throughout the day, just before you dial, think, patience.

This part of our practice is not so much about the actual events happening around and within us, but rather about how we relate to those events.