Patience is a virtue, a state of endurance forbearing and perseverance under difficult circumstances that may seem insurmountable. Patience has a distant emotion called “anger”. You’re waiting. You want something and you wait for it. Right….So you say, “I waited for it, but it never happened!” Well, could it be you needed to wait a little longer or perhaps, did it happen and you missed it…. There is patience and then there is another kind of patience.
What about waiting for the grocery store line to move faster. If you don’t lose your cool while you’re waiting and don’t cuss some people out in the process and hold it in, you’ve been patient, at least for a little while. But, then how about bigger stakes; you want a new job or new position and you have to wait in order to get it and you hope against hope that you will get it. Waiting for something to happen can be arduous and almost tortuous. You wait, wait, wait and then something happens, but what you have been waiting for happens for someone else?? Aw shooks! What do you do? Well, start over or look at other alternatives to reach your goal. Time has not run out?
No. There is always something more to be done; more work in the harvest. There is a patience where you wanted something to happen and it happened. Now, you may have become ambitious because you have another achievement set in your sights. Now, has your patience turned into ambition and what’s next? Is it now greed and avarice set in? Slow down. God has made us in such a way that we want to endeavor to the heights of our ingenuity and ability; but, sometimes, we need to take another look to evaluate ourselves. Have we become greedy? Do we want more and more.
Periodically, I have seen the tv program “Hoarders,” who stock pile “things” so much so that they have little space to walk in their house! I think it’s about when do we catch ourselves and realize that we have enough! I bought a dress online, nothing costly. After I bought the dress, I discovered it was too difficult to put over my head or to step into it. So, I took it to the cleaners and had an expensive long zipper put in it to get it on! So, not everything we want is going to fit. There is a stopping point. So, I decided no more purchase of dresses online.
Thank God, I got out of the deal by placing an inexpensive zipper! We all need patience…Never give up! Keep on keeping on! Teach your children at home.
Jeanette Grattan Parker, Ph.D. Founder-Today’s Fresh Start Charter Schools, 4514 Crenshaw BL., LA 90043 323-293-9826 [writer, artist, educator, speaker, marriage expert (50+) Writings are copyright: “Will You Marry Me” and “Inquiring Minds Want To Know.”] [email protected].