Patience

A Guest Post for Self Sagacity

We all have the opportunity to display it: the patient white collar man who sits in traffic because he doesn’t have another passenger for carpool; the little girl who waits for the rest of her family to finish dinner so she can devour her delightful dessert; the lover who plays hard to get so that his crush knows that easy conquests are not worth pursuing. And we’re reminded by proverbs and fortune cookies that patience is a virtue.


But as I was driving home from school wearing my favorite Ray Ban Aviator yesterday , patiently waiting myself for something in particular, I thought: why? We are always told that it is part of humility, which is a fair enough answer - that a modest man should have the ability to withstand some time to get what he wants. Or the infamous ‘delayed gratification’ theory claims that things are more enjoyable when there is that period of desire without acquisition.

I also wondered if patience was a clever moral trick brought up by people to indirectly enforce people to be less impulsive. Could it be possible that patience actually is a man-incepted trait which is only as virtuous as one believes it to be? If I didn’t think that fighting for something made it all the more worthwhile, would I be just as happy without the challenge? It’s like Kate Hudson said in The Skeleton Key: it only effects you if you believe.

Now, here’s the sad paradox: I believe. As much as I hate it and I catch myself wanting to bite my fingernails waiting for things, I find it truly more impressive to me when I have fought long and hard to have the things I want. The unfortunate reality is that only you can appreciate how patient you are. People may notice but only you will know how you counted the minutes, the hours, the days. Only you will know how quickly your heart lights up when there is a sign of progress and how your heart skipping a beat at the sign of temptation is like a total eclipse of your common sense.

Impulsive people lose the reward of waiting. They get left behind in the conflict between obtaining their desires and the temporariness of their prize. As cold as it sounds, I believe that is the appropriate punishment for people who take jump at instant satisfaction. It may last for a few minutes, a night, a couple days, but the effect will wear off soon enough. It lacks decent quality and durability. My best friend Kenny told me once that he thinks that people are like fabric, varying in composition. “It’s like finding two items at a store: a cheap one and a better quality one. They pick the cheap ones and it gets worn out quickly. Some fabrics just stay fabulous. We fabrics just stay pure — we don’t get worn and torn like most others.” It’s like Katy Perry warns us, cheap love is “always tearing at the seams.” It’s true. Many men choose the cotton t-shirt because it’s cheap, it’s common to find, and everyone looks good in it until it shrinks and we outgrow it. Not very many will look for nor can appreciate silk.

Shopping has taught me to be patient as much as big corporations want you to do otherwise. And I will continue to be so. Because I think that falling for someone genuine is like finding vintage Prada - beautiful, exquisitely built, and often, nowadays, one-of-a-kind.

*About the author- Soul searching and self developing. Supposedly I now have a column on selfsagacity.com (under self wisdom) tab. My writing is mostly fictional examples, however the emotions are real. Look for my articles on Tuesdays and thanks for reading.