Funny how most of us don't choose to learn patience.
For some of us, it comes naturally. For the many of us, we learn patience through unfortunate circumstances. I suppose that is also a form of choice--to submit ourselves to unavoidable circumstances and allow ourselves to become better because of them instead of hardened, jaded, or cynical. For the rest of us, I don't know; maybe we just never learn patience and we become blinded to many of the good things in life because we're too busy thinking about how unfair life is. As difficult as it sometimes is to exercise patience in the very moment we need it, isn't it better to be patient and happy rather than impatient and perpetually frustrated?
"Life is all about attitude and choices." -the mother of Zuster Moses
I think Heavenly Father has provided me lately with catalysts for learning patience. In James 1:4, James writes that as we let patience do her thing we can become "perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
Wanting nothing. How would that feel to not need or want anything because I am perfectly content with what I have? Sometimes I think I know. But most often I think, I want more time, I want a faster computer, I want some new clothes, I want a boyfriend, I want a baby, I want to be prettier, I want to not have homework, I want to sleep in, I want to be able to eat all the chocolate and ice cream I want without feeling sick or getting fat, blah, blah, blah.
Have any of you ever thought those things? Probably not because I know most of the people who read my blog and they are all perfect the way they are. Perfect in my eyes, at least.
For those of us who aren't perfect, patience ultimately breeds perfection, according to James. If we are patience long enough, we will become perfect. (Of course, patience in this sense does not mean waiting and doing nothing, but it means "actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results [don't] appear instantly or without effort.")
If you're still reading you're probably thinking, "Hey, where's the funny stuff? The embarrassing moment? The laughing?" Well, here it is, the reason why I was thinking about patience today:
My group and I had an appointment to meet with our teacher to talk about our research proposal (if you're wondering how you write a research proposal/paper as a group ... it's really, really hard. That in itself is an exercise in patience.) Our appointment was at 12:30, so we met in one of the buildings on campus at 12:00 to add the finishing (and necessary) touches to our paper.
We realized we needed a printer, so we switched buildings. After turning our laptops on, connecting to the Internet, and opening our document, it was about 12:18.
We rearrange some paragraphs. We write our thesis statement. We change some formatting.
"Hey Abby, can you print from your computer?"
Shoot. I can't.
I save the document and attach it in an e-mail to Tom as he walks over to one of the library computers that is connected to the library printers. The rest of us clean everything into our backpacks and meet Tom at his new computer, fully expecting him to already have printed it (at least that's what I was expecting), but he was still waiting for his darn personal settings to load (not his fault, btw). I resist the urge to tap my foot.
Feeling the need to do something at 12:29, I suggest the rest of us can run up to our teacher's office and Tom can meet us there in a few minutes. We only have 15 minutes to conference with her after all.
No, no they say. This will only add a few seconds. It's ok. Ok, fine.
A few minutes later we head back to the first building we were in to meet with our teacher in her office. We are on the first floor and need to be on the fourth, so we call the elevator and then we wait for our rendezvous as it descends from the fourth floor. We all step into the elevator. The elevator continues to descend.
Why are we going down?
A woman was waiting for the elevator in the basement. Ok, no big deal, now we'll go straight to the fourth floor.
We stop at floor one again. ... And then floor two. ... And finally we stop at floor four.
We hurry to our teacher's office 10 minutes late only to find an empty room. Not surprised, we sit in the hall to wait for her.
"Are we meeting with her in the classroom?" Tom asks.
We all look at each other. No one knows. Maybe she did say "classroom."
So then we hurry to yet another building to meet her in our classroom, and there she was waiting for us. It was 12:45. Our appointment is supposed to be over by now, but the next group hasn't shown up yet so we eat into their time.
They don't show up until 1:00 because they tried her office first too.
Hey, by the way, I have a date tonight. My roommates and I are doing a group girls' choice date, so I asked him. Wish me luck, please.
For some of us, it comes naturally. For the many of us, we learn patience through unfortunate circumstances. I suppose that is also a form of choice--to submit ourselves to unavoidable circumstances and allow ourselves to become better because of them instead of hardened, jaded, or cynical. For the rest of us, I don't know; maybe we just never learn patience and we become blinded to many of the good things in life because we're too busy thinking about how unfair life is. As difficult as it sometimes is to exercise patience in the very moment we need it, isn't it better to be patient and happy rather than impatient and perpetually frustrated?
"Life is all about attitude and choices." -the mother of Zuster Moses
I think Heavenly Father has provided me lately with catalysts for learning patience. In James 1:4, James writes that as we let patience do her thing we can become "perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
Wanting nothing. How would that feel to not need or want anything because I am perfectly content with what I have? Sometimes I think I know. But most often I think, I want more time, I want a faster computer, I want some new clothes, I want a boyfriend, I want a baby, I want to be prettier, I want to not have homework, I want to sleep in, I want to be able to eat all the chocolate and ice cream I want without feeling sick or getting fat, blah, blah, blah.
Have any of you ever thought those things? Probably not because I know most of the people who read my blog and they are all perfect the way they are. Perfect in my eyes, at least.
For those of us who aren't perfect, patience ultimately breeds perfection, according to James. If we are patience long enough, we will become perfect. (Of course, patience in this sense does not mean waiting and doing nothing, but it means "actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results [don't] appear instantly or without effort.")
If you're still reading you're probably thinking, "Hey, where's the funny stuff? The embarrassing moment? The laughing?" Well, here it is, the reason why I was thinking about patience today:
My group and I had an appointment to meet with our teacher to talk about our research proposal (if you're wondering how you write a research proposal/paper as a group ... it's really, really hard. That in itself is an exercise in patience.) Our appointment was at 12:30, so we met in one of the buildings on campus at 12:00 to add the finishing (and necessary) touches to our paper.
We realized we needed a printer, so we switched buildings. After turning our laptops on, connecting to the Internet, and opening our document, it was about 12:18.
We rearrange some paragraphs. We write our thesis statement. We change some formatting.
"Hey Abby, can you print from your computer?"
Shoot. I can't.
I save the document and attach it in an e-mail to Tom as he walks over to one of the library computers that is connected to the library printers. The rest of us clean everything into our backpacks and meet Tom at his new computer, fully expecting him to already have printed it (at least that's what I was expecting), but he was still waiting for his darn personal settings to load (not his fault, btw). I resist the urge to tap my foot.
Feeling the need to do something at 12:29, I suggest the rest of us can run up to our teacher's office and Tom can meet us there in a few minutes. We only have 15 minutes to conference with her after all.
No, no they say. This will only add a few seconds. It's ok. Ok, fine.
A few minutes later we head back to the first building we were in to meet with our teacher in her office. We are on the first floor and need to be on the fourth, so we call the elevator and then we wait for our rendezvous as it descends from the fourth floor. We all step into the elevator. The elevator continues to descend.
Why are we going down?
A woman was waiting for the elevator in the basement. Ok, no big deal, now we'll go straight to the fourth floor.
We stop at floor one again. ... And then floor two. ... And finally we stop at floor four.
We hurry to our teacher's office 10 minutes late only to find an empty room. Not surprised, we sit in the hall to wait for her.
"Are we meeting with her in the classroom?" Tom asks.
We all look at each other. No one knows. Maybe she did say "classroom."
So then we hurry to yet another building to meet her in our classroom, and there she was waiting for us. It was 12:45. Our appointment is supposed to be over by now, but the next group hasn't shown up yet so we eat into their time.
They don't show up until 1:00 because they tried her office first too.
Hey, by the way, I have a date tonight. My roommates and I are doing a group girls' choice date, so I asked him. Wish me luck, please.
Patience is so hard! I think you have to learn through experience and it seems like it is never pleasant...
ReplyDeleteHow was your date??