The Gift of Patience
Learning to have patience has been one of the most difficult tasks for me in this lifetime. I’ve spent the majority of my life so far as an emotionally reactive person with a short fuse who was looking for instant gratification around every corner. I was enthralled by the concept of manifestation when I first heard about it, but it became less enticing once I learned that you had to make lasting changes and wait for reality to catch up with you. It took me a long time to realize that these changes were for my highest good regardless of the outcomes of my life. Once I could see farther than what was immediately in front of me, I understood that creating my dream life was the only thing that could tempt me into massive change. Maybe that’s why I wanted these things so badly in the first place, so I would have the motivation to remake myself and my life. Creating your dream life from scratch is a painstaking effort that takes a very long time because you’re building it brick by brick.
I’ve always had a strong sense of determination and resilience, and that has gotten me through some incredibly traumatic times in my life. My issue has always been giving up before I could see the fruits of my labor because I had convinced myself that things were never going to change externally regardless of my efforts. I would work toward something and give it almost everything I had before retreating to save that last bit of myself for the next trial. I had to see that my work was getting me somewhere, slowly but surely, before I could finally give it my all. In that moment, I had to face my fears around lack, uncertainty, and losing everything. Betting on yourself and going all-in feels like the biggest gamble of your life, but it’s actually the most sure bet you’ll ever make because it’s actually rigged. You’re in complete control of how you choose to show up for yourself every single day.
Each decision you make leads to the next step on your path, and as long as you keep moving you will eventually reach the next level where everything looks and feels different in your experience. If you have the patience to give your dreams and goals small consistent effort over the course of weeks, months, and years, you’ll eventually find yourself in very different circumstances. The impatient part of me is closely related to the part of me that’s never satisfied with what I currently have, and I had to sit down with both of them and find things to be grateful for along the way. I had to find gratitude for each step on my path while keeping an eye on the future I wanted. Then I had to find the motivation to show up for myself each day as my current circumstances slowly morphed into this new life I wanted so desperately. Some days showing up looks like surviving on the couch, and other days it looks like showing the world who you came here to be, and both are equally valid.
I spent years trying to move to Lafayette from Kokomo, and there were many days where I wanted to burn it all down and start over. I had countless conversations with people about how it would be so much easier for me to stay and find a way to make my business work in my hometown. I had to endure a long chapter of life where almost everyone around me was trying to convince me that I was wrong and would ultimately fail. I had a vision of my future life, and I refused to give up on it no matter how messy it got. I cried so many tears throughout this journey, but once the tide turned and I could see my new life coming into focus, I knew that every bit of patience I had accrued was about to pay off. The reward for your patience will be eventually landing in your new life after all. You’ll also find satisfaction in knowing that you had it in you all along to make this journey and fight for the life you wanted. That’s a feeling that no instant manifestation can give you.
If everything that we wanted came to us instantly with no work or strife, I don’t think we would have the capacity to fully appreciate it. We would continue to seek more endlessly to fill a void that really had nothing to do with our circumstances. This spiritual path doesn’t just change our circumstances, it changes us on a fundamental level. Patience gives me freedom from emotional reactivity. When a negative emotion hits me now, I can take a deep breath and give myself a moment to realize that it’s not that serious. Whatever is happening will pass, and my emotions around it will too. When I’m not rushing to get from one step to the next, I can appreciate the stillness in between. Having the patience to allow each moment to be what it is rather than what we want it to be gives us the freedom to appreciate all parts of life. It’s easy to appreciate life when everything is going right, but that’s only about half of our time here. The gift of patience is getting to appreciate life as a whole whether we’re high or low in any given moment. It gives us freedom from the mindset that life should bend to our every wish to keep us happy, and it ensures our long-term happiness regardless of what happens.