Patience: The Skill I Keep Getting Opportunities to Practise
I consider myself to be a pretty patient person.
It’s a skill I’ve developed over the years, and I think I inherited some of it from my mother. She has a remarkable ability to wait things out without getting overly worked up. I didn’t always appreciate that quality when I was younger, but I certainly do now.
And lately, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practise it.
This past week seems to have been a particularly good test of my patience. A few things haven’t progressed the way I had hoped they would. I’ve been disappointed by a lack of professionalism from other people, frustrated by institutional red tape, and, of course, there have been the inevitable technical glitches that seem to appear at exactly the moment you really don’t have time for them.
None of these things is particularly earth-shattering on its own. But when several little frustrations begin to pile up, they can take more out of us than we realize. I’ve found myself feeling drained, disappointed and, at times, just a little sad.
And that’s when I’m reminded of something my mindfulness practice has taught me over and over again: whatever I’m experiencing in this moment is temporary.
I may not know how or when a situation will resolve itself, but I do know that things change. They move. They unfold. Questions eventually get answered, problems eventually get sorted out, and situations that feel incredibly frustrating today often seem much less important with the benefit of a little time and perspective.
Of course, knowing that intellectually and actually remembering it when I’m frustrated are two different things.
There are moments when I want an answer now. I want someone to do what they said they were going to do. I want a system that seems unnecessarily complicated to make some common sense. And when technology decides to stop cooperating just when I need it most, I can assure you that my patience is not always as impressive as I would like to think it is.
But underneath all of that is something I’ve been reminding myself of this week: I have absolutely no control over other people and how they behave.
It simply means I stop fighting so hard against something I cannot control.
I can be disappointed when someone isn’t professional. I can be frustrated when an institution creates unnecessary hurdles. I can speak up when something needs to be addressed. But I cannot make another person behave differently, and spending too much energy wishing they would only leaves me more frustrated.
What I do have some control over is myself.
I can choose how I respond. I can decide how much attention I want to give a frustrating situation. I can notice when I’m starting to replay something in my head or allowing someone else’s behaviour to affect the rest of my day. And I can remind myself that just because something is frustrating doesn’t mean I have to carry that frustration around with me.
That, for me, is where patience becomes more than simply waiting.
It becomes a practice.
Mindfulness has taught me to notice what is happening without immediately reacting to it. Sometimes that pause is only a breath. Sometimes I need a little longer. But creating that space gives me an opportunity to step back and ask myself, What is actually mine to deal with here?
Sometimes the answer is very little. I’ve done what I can. The rest is up to someone else, or simply needs time.
And there is something surprisingly freeing about recognizing that.
It doesn’t mean I suddenly become completely okay with everything. It doesn’t mean I stop caring or that I excuse poor behaviour. It simply means I stop fighting so hard against something I cannot control.
And when I do that, I feel a shift. The frustration softens. The disappointment becomes easier to hold. I feel more content, more peaceful, and somehow less drained by the situation. I also feel a small sense of pride.
Not because I’ve managed to sail through the week without getting frustrated, I definitely haven’t. But because I’m becoming better at recognizing what is happening inside me and finding my way back to a calmer place.
I think that’s why I’ve come to see patience as a skill rather than simply a personality trait. Even though I consider myself a patient person, I still have moments when my patience wears thin. I still get irritated. I still wonder why something that should be so simple has somehow become so complicated.
But perhaps being patient doesn’t mean that those feelings disappear. Perhaps it means that when they show up, we become better at meeting them without allowing them to take over.
Maybe that’s one of the quieter gifts of mindfulness. It doesn’t remove the frustrations of everyday life. It doesn’t make other people behave the way we wish they would, and it certainly doesn’t prevent computers from having their little meltdowns.
What it can give us is a little more space around the experience. Enough space to remember that this moment will pass. Enough space to recognize what we can control and what we can’t. And enough space to choose how we want to move through whatever comes next.
This past week may not have unfolded the way I wanted it to. There are still things I’m waiting for, questions I’d like answered, and situations I wish had been handled differently.
But I’m okay.
And perhaps that’s the real practice of patience. It's not waiting for everything around us to finally behave the way we want it to, but learning that we can remain grounded even when it doesn’t.
We can do what is ours to do, let go of what isn’t, and trust that things will change.
Because they always do.
And in the meantime, we get to practise.
