How to be more patient

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By John DeVries | February 7, 2008

You’ve probably heard this bible verse from Corinthians.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

I’m not really a Christian anymore. I don’t proclaim to follow Jesus and I no longer believe every word that’s in the bible. What I want to focus on here is just those first few words. “Love is patient”.

How patient are you?

I intend to help you consider some areas of your life that may require patience. But first, let us consider the concept of patience.

What is patience?

www.dictionary.com defines patience as follows:

“bearing provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain, etc., with fortitude and calm and without complaint, anger, or the like.”

I am in disagreement with this definition. You may think that a proud, lofty, or maybe even ridiculous statement, but I would encourage you to disagree with the dictionary on occasion.

However, I chose this definition because it matches how I think most people view patience. For those of us who desire to be patient, we genuinely work at “bearing” difficulties. This is often unrealistic. When you “bear” something, ultimately that means you carry a weight. You tolerate something that’s weighing on you. Unfortunately, as humans our capacity to bear any difficulty is limited. Some of us can bear a great deal, while others of us can bear very little. But there in lies the problem with “bearing”, as it were. Eventually, a heavy enough load will cause you to crack.

In other words, as long as you view difficult situations as a thing to “bear”, you basically resign yourself to eventually losing your patience. Why does this happen?

When you “bear” something, it means you tolerate (or if you’re very mature maybe even accept) a situation that weights on you. It could be a frustrating co-worker, a friend, a relationship, a job, a broken down car or even yourself. But no matter what the thing you bear is, you deal with it because you must, even though you dislike the situation. Bad idea.

Slowly, as you get closer and closer to your patience threshold you become slightly less tolerant and a little more frustrated. This happens because bearing a difficulty requires energy and perseverance. Some of us will calmly wait in a traffic jam for hours; others of us explode at the slightest delay.

So what’s wrong with this model?

Bearing difficulty, of any kind, generally requires you to suppress feelings of anxiety, frustration, or anger. As you move these feelings out of your conscious mind they don’t disappear. You felt those negative emotions for a reason! Emotions are signals, you’re not supposed to erase them, you’re supposed to acknowledge them and understand them. Too many people just ignore their emotions, disregarding them completely. I don’t think you aught to make all your decisions based on how you feel, but your emotions are a form of intelligence. They’re a sign that your situation isn’t agreeing with you in some way. So, listen up.

Secondly, when you suppress emotions they don’t disappear. You don’t actually get rid of them, they simply manifest in another way since you never bothered to deal with them. Have you ever known someone who had a panic attack, blew up, or even came down with some very strange physical ailment due to stress? Maybe this has happened to you. There is plenty of legitimate scientific evidence to suggest our minds and our bodies are intricately connected.

Don’t take care of your mind –> Unhealthy body
Refuse to care for your body –> Unhealthy mind.

So, don’t push your emotions out of your conscious mind and then pretend you’re patient. That’s not patience, that’s bearing a problem. Ultimately, you’ll break.

However, this then poses a very difficult problem. Life, by its very nature presents us with challenges, some of which are very serious. How are you to be patient with a frustrating person, a disease, or yourself?

Convert it

Sounds simple right? The concept is, but I’ve definitely discovered through experience that converting frustration, anxiety, or anger into love (and thus patience), is strait up hard.

Originally this concept came to me while listening to a podcasted Dharma lecture by Rev. Heng Sure from Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. You can download some of his lectures with Itunes, or you can check them out on the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery website at http://www.bttsonline.org/Webcast.aspx

But when I first heard him discuss it, I didn’t have any idea how to do it. How was I supposed to just convert frustration and anger? Forcing them from my mind didn’t work, that just destroyed my mental and physical health.

It wasn’t until some time later that I got it. To convert “affliction”, as Heng Sure would call it, into true patience, you need to completely re-identify yourself and the disturbing situation.

Internalize both the problem and the solution

If your life view is that people in the world are separate from you, life situations are a result of chance, and your responses to both are completely out of your control, then you’re doomed to impatience and suffering.

Stephen R. Covey discusses a concept in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people”, I think is particularly relevant here. He says, “Between stimulus and response is our greatest power - the freedom to choose”.

Life will throw circumstances and problems on you that are out of your control. These are the stimuli. However, we tend to view our response to those stimuli as uncontrollable. We put our responses on autopilot.

This is wrong! You have a choice to make when something you don’t like happens to you. But before you can even make the most empowering choice, you must first realize that you control your choices, your attitudes, and your beliefs. And these are the things that will help you to transcend impatience. And belief in the connectedness of humanity, I think is, one mindset that will help you become much more patient.

Connectedness

Patience comes from a paradigm and belief that very few of us in the post-modern, western world hold. Patience requires that you believe each and every individual on earth has inherent and intrinsic value, and that every human being is equal, important, and most of all connected to you. If you believe that others are your adversaries, that each of us is separate, and that in order to gain others must lose, you’re doomed to impatience. Here’s why.

You can’t control other people, or external circumstances. If you believe those things aren’t connected to you in any way, that they’re just chance or “God’s will”, your only choice is simply to endure. You will not defeat anger, frustration or anxiety. They are a part of that mental model. But imagine this cognitive shift for a moment.

What if that annoying co-worker or boss, or the worst parts your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend, were actually parts of you? What if you shared more than just the same planet, workspace, or residence? What if you actually shared the same consciousness?

This may sound totally nuts to you. You’re entitled to your opinion, but if you want to be more patient, hear me out.

Your conflicts with other people stem from your ego, your identity with the concept of self. The “I” in most every thought that you have. Imagine for a moment that the “I” was gone. Imagine to the best of your ability that suddenly the identity of “insert your name here” didn’t exist. Picture there being a physical body and mind in your control. But you have no sense of individuality.

Now picture a person you very much dislike and imagine them insulting or hurting that “I-less”, empty body with no individual identity.

It doesn’t hurt does it? It doesn’t irritate you or frustrate you. It’s as if they just threw an apple into a black hole (I’m not sure why an apple, I suppose it could be a softball or even a cow for that matter). Nothing happens, there’s no response at all. You just see it perfectly for what it is. That person simply made a comment which stemmed from their own perceptions, identity, and likely their insecurity. Frustration isn’t required, and anger is irrelevant because you quite literally have nothing to defend.

But what would happen if you no longer had any concept of self. What could replace it?

God, a unified consciousness, unconditional love, all of humanity etc… You fill in the blank. I can’t say for sure because I’ve never been completely in this state. But here is what I do know.

If you remove “you” form the equation and insert, we, us, other people, humanity, or love for all living beings. You get peace, and you suddenly never feel the need to endure people. If you mentally allow the possibility that the faults of others are also faults of your own, that each person wants the same things you want (love, happiness, joy, peace), and that ultimately the two of you actually have both few external differences, and quite possible the EXACT same nature underneath your egos, real and true patience is the natural result. It becomes effortless.

You will feel clear and un-afflicted (I love making up words).

Circumstances that don’t involve people

Sometimes people aren’t the things that bother you. Maybe you’re having to be patient with yourself, a broken leg, cancer, or just a bad day at the office. These too are things you can deal with, but once again, you need a new mindset.

Viktor Frankl, a psychologist and survivor of the Nazi death camps wrote a book called “Mans search for Meaning”. In it he suggests that one way to ease suffering is to assign meaning to it. Most of us aren’t in a position to transcend frustration and suffering completely. I’m not God and I assume you’re not either. As human beings our desire and search for true meaning in life is universal. Each of us seeks to live a life that is indeed meaningful. Some of us need to meet our physical needs first, e.g., food, water, shelter, etc… But once those things are taken care of, meaning becomes an essential question. One you can either choose to ponder and fill, or disregard and forget about. However, if you choose the later I would argue you’ll simply deal with the question much later, perhaps on your death bed. You probably won’t escape the question all together.

Some of us find meaning through religion, others of us through love, or maybe we derive our purpose through service to other people. Whatever method you choose, Frankl suggests there is indeed a constant among these modes - self transcendence. True meaning can’t be found through the pursuit of pleasure, possessions or selfish desires. You will only find actual meaning in your life by committing to something larger than yourself, be that humanity, your country, God, religion, or maybe even one other person.

Though all of those options probably aren’t equal, and some of them may even be dangerous or destructive, the point I am hoping you will get is that meaning also can be applied to specific circumstances. But in order for that meaning to provide you with more patience, you must make sure to assign a meaning to your suffering that is greater than you.

Almost 5 months ago now I parted ways with my ex-girlfriend whom I was still very much I love with. Though neither of us wanted this solution, it was a complicated situation in which there was no other alternative. If I had chosen (and there were plenty of days I did) to simply wallow in grief, sadness, and/or loneliness, my suffering would be come permanent and uncontrollable. However, I choose to the best of my ability to assign a meaning to this experience which was greater than myself.

First, I knew that through this experience I was being forced to face some extremely important questions in my life. But even more important than those questions, I realized that this was an opportunity to discover the best parts of me, and then give those things to the world.

Without my pain, I would never have been driven to reach that conclusion. As a result, many other people will be able to benefit from my temporary discomfort. Actually, this in part was the impetus for both this website and some major changes I choose to make in my attitudes towards others. Ultimately, the world will be better for my temporary, and relatively non-serious suffering.

Secondly, the girl that I was in love with will have the opportunity to grow and become a healthier, happier person. And if that love was real, then I should be able to accept that and be happy with the result.

I realize this is a mild example in terms of the level of actual suffering. Though it was a difficult time for me, a terminal illness or the death of a loved one are circumstances in which the same rules apply. Frankl mentions at one point in his book that he was counseling a gentleman who was grieving over the loss of his wife. Seeing the man was suffering greatly, Dr. Frankl suggested the man assign a meaning to his painful circumstance. When the patient wasn’t sure what meaning would fit, Frankly suggested that through this man’s wife’s death, she was ultimately being spared the suffering she surely would have faced if her husband had died first. So, though he was in an immense amount of pain, that pain was being experienced in place of his wife’s. This didn’t stop or end the grieving, but it gave the patient a purpose and meaning through which to experience his suffering. Ultimately, it was a healthier and more practical mindset.

These are proactive methods. Instead of just resigning yourself to frustration, anger, and suffering, you can choose to assign a meaning to your pain. Patience will be the natural result because you no longer feel you simply have to bear a problem. You have the opportunity to make something positive from your experience. Optimism isn’t just a big joke; it can be life-transforming. However, it requires discipline and perseverance.

As far as I’m concerned, if Dr. Viktor Frankl lost all his friends, his family and his newly wed wife to the Nazi gas chambers, and still managed to find meaning in his suffering by setting up a clinic to help other survivors inside the camp, then I owe it to him, myself, and the world to do my best to transcend my difficulties and use them for greater purposes. If facing certain death and ultimate persecution didn’t stop him, it doesn’t need to stop you either.

Be patient

Cultivating a true attitude of patience takes time, effort, and ironically - patience. Don’t expect yourself to remove all of your troubles in one quick swoop. Life is a process, growing is a process, and patience is a process.

There will be times that these mindsets work for you, and times when they don’t. That doesn’t mean you’re at fault, or that changing how you think about problems doesn’t work. Let yourself have a bad day here and there. But choose to overcome life’s challenges. Choose patience.

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