Patience: Mastering the Art of Waiting and Perseverance

Patience is a virtue. It is the glue that holds time together. That doesn’t mean it comes easy because patience as the art of waiting is, more often than not, a challenge. It is naturally difficult to be patient and wait for something but the good news is that it is not impossible. We all have the capacity to be patient and only need to choose to be, to allow ourselves to master patience: the art of waiting and perseverance.

What is Patience?

Patience is the ability to tolerate delay, difficulty, or suffering without becoming anxious or annoyed. In essence, patience is not only about waiting and having the ability to wait but it is also about perseverance and the ability to tolerate a difficult or uncomfortable situation. Such a situation may also be one of suffering or pain, depending on the subject of your patience or what is causing you to want/need to be patient.

Patience Synonyms

Patience can also be appreciated using its synonyms including stoicism, resignation, self-restraint, restraint, tolerance, endurance, tenacity, and forbearance. Other words that share meaning with patience include serenity, tranquility, equanimity, understanding, kindness, and consideration.

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a virtue, nobility, or goodness because it is not easy. Patience takes a lot of grit and courage. Can you imagine persevering in a difficult situation that is causing you suffering, for however long, and still wanting to continue to be patient? Such is the virtue of patience and its aspect of nobility doesn’t come easy. In a sense, mastering patience is becoming noble and that is no easy task. It is an art that you need to master; the art of waiting and perseverance.

What is the True Meaning of Patience?

The true meaning of patience is the ability to bear provocation, discomfort, pain, or suffering without irritation, loss of temper, or complaint. In essence, the true meaning of patience is having the ability to withstand a difficult situation without letting it affect you or invoke or provoke a reaction from you. I would relate that to being in the mud/dirt and not allowing yourself to get dirty.

What is a Good Example of Patience?

A good example of patience is starting a new business. When you’re at the beginning, you have no real resources to kickstart your new business. In essence, you have to suffer and scrape whatever funds you can find to try and bolster the chances of your business actually becoming something. At this stage, you may suffer problems such as the inadequacy of resources, a lack of support from the government or the banking sector, a lack of knowledge or business acumen, etc, but still choose to remain strong.

Going through this difficulty, pain, and suffering and still holding your head up, persevering, and pushing on, is what is explicable of patience. Patience is perseverance, the ability to withstand or tolerate discomfort or an unideal situation without getting irritated, losing your temper, or complaining. Another good example of patience is waiting peacefully in a long line/queue.

Mastering the Art of Waiting and Perseverance

The best way to master the art of waiting and perseverance is to practice patience. For instance, instead of withdrawing money from an ATM, try and go inside the bank and wait in line. Keep an open mind and give yourself like an hour or two where you will just wait in the bank. Try and enjoy the waiting and be patient until it gets to your time to be served.

On reaching the teller, be nice and courteous and let them take their time to get you the funds you need. After they are done, thank them and tell them you appreciate their good work. That is one way you can practice patience and learn how to master the art of waiting and perseverance.

Is it Patience or Be Patient?

Patience is the noun form of the adjective patient. Being patient is an adjective that means to be tolerant of waiting, delays, and discomfort. Being patient is accompanied by the nature of being calm and peaceful and when one is patient, they are portraying patience, the noun.

Why is Patience so Important?

Patience is important because it teaches us to develop a healthy and accommodating attitude. Essentially, patience teaches us to accommodate difficulty, delays, or unideal situations without breaking the peace or getting provoked or invoked to react negatively. Patience is also important because it promotes kindness and understanding towards others. When you are patient with a loved one, for instance, you are kind to them and understand their situation and the difficulty they might face becoming better or changing something you may dislike or want them to change in their lives.

The Importance of Patience

The importance of patience is that it bolsters calmness, peacefulness, and the open-mindedness to recognize and accept that things will not always go our way or how we want them to all the time. The importance of patience is also that it builds character. When you learn to be patient and master the art of waiting and perseverance, you build a strong character. This means that you become patient in all aspects of your life and are more understanding and kind to those you interact with in numerous aspects. In essence, you become a better partner, friend, relative, and colleague at your workplace.

The Characteristics of Patience

The characteristics of patience or the characteristics of an individual who is patient include tolerance, calmness, peacefulness, kindness, and understanding. A patient individual will be kind towards others and understand that a situation may not go their way and that they may face delays or discomfort. A good example of being patient is visiting a government office looking for a service that necessitates the sourcing of your records or documents, such as applying for a passport.

When you go to apply for a passport, you need to be patient and go with all your documents. Despite producing these documents, you need to be patient and wait for them to be verified and for the system to receive the records as input, and for it to determine passport eligibility and produce a passport for you. This is a process that can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks and therefore you need to be patient. A characteristic of a patient person, in this case, is that they would not book any travel before receiving their passport and would only make plans to travel after they have gone through the passport application process, and succeeded to get their passport.

Types of Patience

Patience can be appreciated in numerous types including patience in daily living and the daily hassles, patience with one another or interpersonal patience, and also patient in life or life hardship patience.

Daily Hassles Patience

Patience in daily hassles is best explained, for instance, as being patient while in a queue in a bank, waiting for the barista to make your coffee despite almost getting late for work, and making plans ahead of time to pick up your son or daughter from school. It can also be arriving early and being on time for a date, a job interview, etc.

Interpersonal Patience

Interpersonal patience or being patient with one another is the type of patience that is needed in relationships. For instance, your boyfriend or girlfriend may be one of those people who takes very long to get prepared to go out. As such, as a patient individual, you would allow them a kind of grace period or overtime, where you know that after maybe thirty minutes to one hour after you have gotten prepared yourself is when they will finish getting prepared.

Therefore, as a person exercising interpersonal patience, you would get prepared and use the thirty minutes to one hour maybe checking your emails or playing a video game; without saying anything or complaining to your significant other and just internally or quietly understanding that they take significantly longer to get prepared. Being patient in this situation also means that you would accommodate their extended period of grooming without even saying a word about it or complaining or fidgeting and the like.

Life Hardship Patience

Life hardship patience is patience in the face of difficulties or hardships in life. Life is inherently marred with challenges, difficulties, and hardships, and having life hardship patience is having the perseverance to face the challenges and hardships in life without complaining, or letting the hardships put you down or break your spirit. An excellent example of life hardship patience is getting sick or going down with an illness.

You may catch flu, for instance, during flu season, and now you need a few handkerchiefs, have this nasty sneeze and your nostrils are blocked and you are almost howling and producing this sleazy sound when you breathe. Being patient, in this case, is allowing your body to heal and go through the flu without becoming irritated, angry, or talking negatively to yourself. Understanding that illness and sickness, or falling sick is part of life allows you to be patient and exercise life hardship patience.

How Does Patience Make You a Better Person?

Patience makes you a better person by giving you the tools you need to deal with delays, hardship, or difficulty gracefully, and with kindness. Patience also induces confidence and you are able to exude contentedness as you are satisfied and happy with the present moment. The best way to explain this is by putting it into perspective.

When you are patient, you accept the current situation and your journey on the way to achieving what you want to achieve. As such, your contentedness with the present moment gives you confidence for the future and to face the future, regardless of the challenges or hardships it may bring. As I said, you start to master the art of waiting and perseverance and become better at coping with discomfort, delays, and suffering.

Why is Patience so Difficult?

Patience is so difficult because it requires us to withstand uncomfortable, difficult, or painstakingly slow situations. Patience demands stoicism and perseverance even in situations that make us uncomfortable and unhappy. It’s like the story that one should turn the other cheek. This expectation and challenge to remain strong in difficulty or hardship is what makes patience difficult. However, being patient and mastering the art of waiting and perseverance is also a strength.

Is Being Patient a Strength?

Being patient is definitely a strength. It is a sign of good character, perseverance, and kindness. When you are patient, you portray the strength of personality and character and show that you can deal with and cope with difficulty, while holding your head up high and not letting it phase you.

What is the Key to Patience?

The key to patience is kindness and understanding. For instance, when you go for your morning coffee and are almost getting late, the key to being patient is being kind to the barista and understanding that it may take some time to prepare your coffee, despite you being in a hurry. In another situation where you have to wait in line, you need the understanding to accept that there are others that came first, and also want and need to be served as much as you do. Patience with others may also mean being kind to someone else and understanding their situation, the difficulties they may face, and also the time it will take them to get to where they want to be.

Is Patience an Emotion?

No, patience is not an emotion but a quality or characteristic of an individual. Patience is a character trait and a good one at that. It shows kindness, understanding, perseverance, and stoicism. You can imagine kings having to be patient and not wage war against another kingdom in ancient history, and how hard it must have been to hold strong and remain patient with those other kingdoms.

As such, patience isn’t an emotion but the ability to manage your emotions in a difficult situation. For instance, remaining calm and peaceful in a long line at the bank, despite almost getting late to an important meeting you were to go to. Patience can also be appreciated as understanding others' feelings and emotions and accommodating the way they feel, and understanding and supporting them. That is how you master patience and the art of waiting, perseverance, and understanding.

What is Patience to You?

We’d love to know what it means to be patient to you. Do you exercise patience? Are you someone who will understand a difficult situation or delay, or will you blurt out harsh words in a traffic jam and rage? Let us know in the comments. For me personally, patience has been creating Mania Inc. and letting it grow organically, despite a lot of difficulties, and just trusting that everything will work out; and we’ll still bring you quality content despite the difficulty and a low budget.

Remember you can support us via the donate page or join our Patreon and become a member of our community.

You can also subscribe to this blog and become a premium member and get exclusive content, offers, and deals. Thank you and may the patience and art of waiting and perseverance be with you. <3