Recent continuous episodes of delayed and cancelled flights as well as missed trains and being lost inspired me to write about the concept of patience.
When flights got cancelled and I had to stay at the airport for 12 hours
I first experienced patience when I was three years old. On another beautiful day in kindergarten, when all the kids were waiting for their parents to come and pick them up, my brother, one of the greatest men in my life, walked to the staircase where I was sitting. He grabbed the little shoes and carefully put each of them on my feet. I was so excited to have him help me with the shoes that I didn't notice some other kids were running around and hitting his back until I was about to stand up. At three years old, of course I didn't even know what patience was. Yet, I did wonder why he didn't get mad with other kids and just focused on the shoes.
Helping others with their shoes is a nice gesture that I really appreciate even now
Two years later, I grew into a 5-year-old child who usually refused to eat. At that time, so many cousins tried to "talk sweet" and slowly fed me but I didn't accept any food until my brother came. He quietly sat down beside me on the staircase in our dining room, asked for the bowl of food handed to him from another cousin, gently scooped some soup with the metal spoon, smiled at me, and said "Do you want to have some?" At that very moment, I could feel that the person right in front of me would be willing to spend hours making sure that at least something would go into my stomach. And so, the idea of patience became much clearer in my mind even though I was not able to understand it yet.
My brother and I were older than these two but this resembles what happened
Time passed by and when I started learning how to write, I also learned how to be patient with myself. After the accident, it was not easy to control the half right of my body. I practiced writing with my left hand and slowly became a left-hander from that time onwards. Lying down on the floor and trying to scribble lines after lines on my notebook, sometimes I just wanted to give up on writing. I still remembered the time I cried out of hatred for writing. Interestingly, one teardrop fell down to the notebook page and made a hole right there.
However, the most memorable days when I realized the power of patience were when I joined a keyboard/piano class during my primary school years. I was really grateful for the teacher who accepted me to his class despite my physical difficulty. Even now, it always feels so magical to think about how my right fingers managed to move along the organ keyboards throughout those years. The journey of playing the keyboards was tough because my right fingers always froze when I had to perform in front of others. It was frustrating when certain fingers were out of control and hit the wrong notes. Yet, I kept at it and pushed through such a hardship with patience and a belief that I would make it to more advanced pieces.
I miss this sometimes and I thought of practicing pieces with only my left hand before
Then, on one fine day, fingering for certain parts of the piece was so hard so I gave up in the midst of practicing "A time For Us" from "Romeo and Juliet."
And on that day, patience gave in to adversity.
That was when I learnt how patience would slip away without solid determination and strong self-confidence.
As I grow older, the idea of patience grows. At 22, I realize I have been too impatient with others and with myself too many times. For so many years, when I get too caught up with life, when time becomes as valuable as gold, my mind and heart have no space for patience. I keep making choices without giving enough time to really think through things. I chase after my urge to finish and get things done. I let hidden, subtle judgement, assumptions and stereotypes take precedence over mental processing and mindfulness. I leave too much room for self-criticism and self-doubt and never allow my mind to really rest. "There's no time to waste," I remind myself all the time.
When I hurry like everyone else
And so, it turns out that I have wasted a lot of time in my hurry because a hasty decision, when resulting in unexpected events, usually requires much more time for me to revaluate and rethink again and again, let alone my own immersion in the chaotic emotional world.
When being too quick develops into a routine, my mind and heart unknowingly forget how to take a nap. Solitude is abandoned in a corner of my book. Understanding, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love get buried too deep that I hurt people with my actions, words or even thoughts. I put myself in continuous rounds of harsh assessment and hurt my own heart and mind.
That's the price of impatience, because I have never understood what patience really means and I have never been truly patient with anyone, including myself.
However,
It's never too late to learn how to be patient again.
It's never too late to come back to my patient inner child.
It's never too late to give myself and others some more time so I can make better choices, live more fully and love more truly.
From Thich Nhat Hanh - my all time respected teacher
So, in the here and the now, I commit myself to the journey of practicing patience.
How about you? :)
Till next time!
