Patience is a virtue…that I don’t possess

I am not a patient person. There, I said it. I know I should be a patient person, but I’m simply not one. I don’t wear that as a badge of honor, but as a truth that I’m grappling with in my daily life. 

Can you relate? We know we’re supposed to be patient, and we’ve all heard that good things come to those who wait. While this is probably true, I’m fairly certain we’ve all witnessed situations when good things came to those who went thundering ahead (even if sometimes bad things happen to these same people as well). 

Lately, I’ve been shown more and more that I need to cultivate more patience in my life and it’s a difficult task. First of all, I hear this unseen clock ticking in my mind, reminding me that I’m running out of time. I’m getting older. The world appears to be crashing around me. I wonder how much longer I have to do the things I feel called to do.

I know that sounds morbid. I know it sounds ungrateful. It probably sounds like #firstworldproblems. But if you live in a youth-obsessed culture when you’re past your prime, then it’s easy to feel like you’ll be put out to pasture well before you’re ready to go. 

I also feel like the stuff I’m waiting on is so important that it needs to happen now, now, now! I have a book inside me that is bubbling up and ready to come out, but the powers that be require me to reach a certain level of popularity before they’ll consider my words as potentially print worthy.

So, what does impatient me do? Freak out! Which, of course, is not good at all. The last time I checked, the frantic, freaked out, desperate girl didn’t win any popularity contests. (Don’t even get me started right now on the fact that publishing is now a popularity contest…I’ll address that soon). 

As if that wasn’t enough, I’m also feeling an incredible amount of impatience regarding my partnership status. I’m legally married, domestically separated, and soon to be divorced. Part of me wants the whole blasted thing to be over with so I can quickly try to remedy the situation of my singleness.

There’s also a part of me (a big part) that wants to go marching over to my soon-to-be ex’s door and demand he come to his senses. My impatience feels wildly out of control, and while I have no idea what to do, I feel the need to do something now!

Recovering from impatience with a purchase?

So here I am, the world’s most impatient woman, who at least recognizes she has a problem. (That is the first step in recovering, right?) In thinking about this character flaw of mine, I started looking for ways to build patience into my life. I thought about the reasons for my impatience, and how this spirit of impatience has shown up prominently in recent days. I decided that in order to start cultivating patience I would force it into my life, starting with my latest book purchase. 

(Now, if you’re a little put off by the fact that instead of going for one of the holy grail’s of patience, such as waiting for God to reveal my life’s purpose, I’m rallying on about a silly book purchase, stick with me for just a few minutes…)

The downside of instant gratification

Think about it. We’re so used to instant gratification when making purchases that we take it for granted. We can get many things within two days and some within two hours. If what we’re purchasing is available in a digital format, we can get it now. There’s no denying that being able to access things on a right-now basis has made waiting for something to arrive a real headache for us impatient types. 

Learning patience the old-school way

In my attempt to cultivate patience I decided to take things old school. There were a few books that I wanted, and according to Amazon they could have been mine instantly with ebooks, or within two days with Prime delivery. I decided to forego that convenience and I ordered them from a smaller bookstore that shipped them standard delivery. I ordered those books last week and I won’t have them until next week. What I could have had in two days is now taking almost two weeks. These aren’t books that I’m ambivalent about, I really want to read them. I’ve been tracking my package and watching it slowly make its way to my address.

I stopped myself from caving in and purchasing one as an ebook in order to get started reading. Patience is a virtue that I’m trying to cultivate, I reminded myself. This is going to help heal you from participating in the culture of instant gratification. So, here I am, bookless and feeling a little impatient, but waiting all the same. On the bright side, I feel good knowing that I supported a small business with my order. 

This may seem like a fairly insignificant situation, and I admit it might be. But by being patient in this little thing, perhaps I’m helping myself be patient with big things down the road. Perhaps these are the baby steps I need to take right now so that I’m ready for bigger steps in the future. A future that is decidedly undecided right now, and will likely require major leaps of patience in order to survive before I can begin to think about thriving. Now here I sit, waiting for books that will take several more days to arrive. I’m trusting the fact that by being faithful in this tiny thing, God will grant me the grace to be faithful in bigger things in the future.

Have you struggled with impatience? What are some ways you’ve battled against it?