The Power of Patience: How This Old-Fashioned Virtue Can Improve Your Life

When you come into the present moment as it truly is, there are no problems, “only situations—to be dealt with now, or left alone and accepted as part of the ‘isness’ of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with.”

“Judging others will avail you nothing and injure you spiritually. Only if you inspire others to judge themselves will anything worthwhile have been accomplished.”

When we are experiencing impatience, we tend to concretize current reality: it’s like this and it’s going to be this way forever. I’m going to be in this job forever; I’m going to be changing diapers forever; I’m going to be struggling financially forever; I’m going to be alone forever; I’m going to be in this bed sick forever. If we’re in an uncom

“When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging.”

When we believe in a happy future, we can wait more calmly now. This takes faith—in ourselves, our partners, our God, the benevolence of the universe—because we have no guarantee one way or another. We must live as if it will turn out, without knowing precisely how it will end up. And that is not always easy, particularly when there’s a lot at stak

All this stimulation and outward attention has one effect: to make everything a blur and to create a sense of mental restlessness that is the antithesis of patience. David Shenk writes about this in The End of Patience: “As we go to higher info altitudes, where the information moves faster . . . our eyes, ears, and cerebral cortexes have more to ke

Waiting sharpens desire. In fact it helps us recognize where our real desires lie. It separates our passing enthusiasms from our true longings.

life will turn out exactly as we want it. Businesses and relationships fail; the stock market goes down as well as up. Ultimately our faith asks us to believe that even if it doesn’t turn out the way we wanted, it still is for the best—we

Any time we proclaim something boring, what we really are saying is that we don’t have patience for it. Rather than looking at ourselves for the source of the problem—and therefore the solution—we look at whatever is provoking the feeling and label that the problem.