Between Health and Wealth Avenues: Why I loathe patience but work for it just the same...

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. - Carl Jung

So you're angry things aren't going as planned? You're frustrated things aren't happening fast enough. You work hard but don't see the pay off? Ok. Take a deep breath. Take a step back. Are you alive? yes. Then things are happening that are good - don't you forget it. Are you alive?

None of us who battle illness, injury, addiction, abuse, disease are where we hoped to be. Instead of letting this bring you down let it lift you up. Look at us surviving, occasionally thriving with everything going wrong in our lives. We are resilient and that matters. We are amazing. We are strong. Patience doesn't have to feel good. It's not a state of apathy - it takes a lot of work and it always will. Patience is not the same as not caring. I confused these for a long time. I care very much and I am terribly impatient - prone to agitation and anger. I am working on this. All I ask is that you do the same. Breath my friends. Keep working hard, keep doing your best. But never expect a pay off - a point where suddenly it's all fine; where the hard work is done. We don't have the luxury of fooling ourselves like this. It's always going to be hard - it's also always going to be worth it!

I am not by nature, a patient, calm person. I have never been one to just accept things the way they are. Hence the work I do now. If it's not good enough work to change it. So where does patience come in - patience enters the picture before you lose your mind to frustration and anger. It's the only way to keep going day after day especially when you fight injustice - a losing battle at times. It's the only way to keep doing what you're doing without becoming dark and jaded - the reigning skeptic in a nation of skeptics. Never expect a magical outcome. Never give up hope that a magical outcome is possible. Patience is a balancing act.

I was just reading up on this in Psychology Today. Sometimes it's just better to let someone else advise you so today I share these great words...

WHAT CREATES PATIENCE?

Self-confidence that you can win. The more certain we are that we can achieve our goal, the less we'll worry over the possibility of failure and therefore the better we'll be able to tolerate not achieving our goal right now.

Recognition that your goal isn't crucial for your happiness. No single goal, no matter how important it may be, no matter how badly we may want it, can ever create the entirety of our happiness. Reminding ourselves of this even as we strive toward our goal with all our might helps to calm the sense of urgency we feel about obtaining it.

A determination to advance one step at a time. Recognizing the need to chunk large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones enables us to focus on doing today's work today and tomorrow'swork tomorrow. Add up enough of those days and we'll find ourselves standing right in front of our dream, come one of them.

HOW TO ACTIVELY MANIPULATE THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF TIME

Our subjective experience of the passage of time tends to accelerate when we're immersed in an enjoyable experience and slow when we're bored or in pain. For this reason, viable strategies for subjectively speeding time up when waiting might include:

Immersing yourself fully in the action you're taking. Allow yourself to be consumed with the task at hand. Enter the world ofMihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow and become the experience you're having, losing yourself in it and casting off your propensity to look beyond the present moment.
Distracting yourself. If you've already taken all the action you can and must now wait, wait actively rather than passively by distracting yourself with another engaging activity. Make it something vitally interesting in order to lend it the power to tear your mind away from your obsession.
Vividly imagining you're already enjoying what you're waiting for. Anticipation can create impatience, true, but also great enjoyment. Savor the waiting, fully explore in your imagination what it will be like when your goal is achieved. In fact, anticipating something good is sometimes even more enjoyable than actually having it happen.

IMPATIENCE WITH OTHER PEOPLE

I've observed that when I'm feeling impatient with someone for any reason it usually has far more to do with some trigger of mine they've inadvertently pulled than with their behavior (even when their behavior is problematic, my impatience with it remains a separate issue). Obviously not everyone's impatience triggers are the same. For example, I'm impatient with lazy people but wonderful with confused people. The former I want to slap. The latter I want to teach. Why wouldn't I want to teach the former, too? I certainly should. That's the reaction I want to have. But I haven't managed to prevent laziness from triggering my slap button yet. I'm aware of it now as my issue, though, so (usually) I don't slap lazy people but rather now recognize my impatience with them as a gauge of my own progress (or lack thereof). I know when I stop feeling impatient in response to laziness it will mean I've advanced to an even greater degree of belief in the inherent goodness of people, a place I'm quite anxious to get. But it sure ain't easy... (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/201403/how-be-patient)

So be patient with yourself. Be honest with yourself. Be patient with others. Above all keep your balance. As long as you're trying you are miles ahead of everyone who isn't. Be kind to yourself. We are all still learning!

Have a happy, healthy and hopeful day my friends. Y'all come back now ya hear? Peace, Audrey