It is often said that patience is a virtue. But as with many sacred cows, the devil is in the details.
Let’s examine what we mean by patience.
The oxford dictionary defines patience as “the ability to stay calm and accept a delay or something annoying without complaining”. But if you go deeper, a patient actually means “the one who suffers”.
In essence, when we tell people to be patient. We are telling them to suffer as they wait.
Now, if your toes were on fire, would you patiently sit at the fire as you wait for help? Will you stay calm and accept delay?
Okay, if your loved one was sick and convulsing at the waiting bay at the hospital, would you exercise the virtue of patience and wait for your turn at the triage?
Well, we can agree that you can be patient and wait for your turn to be served food at your friend’s wedding. But if you have ulcers and were writhing in pain and needed some boiled cabbage to sooth your ulcers, wouldn’t you jump the queue?
This is the thing;
Patience is for the things that can wait.
But for the things that are important, the things that really matter. For matters of life and death. Patience is not a virtue.
One more thing;
The people who tell us to be patient don’t usually give us a timeline. How long should we wait? Is it 2 minutes? 2 hours? 2 days? 2 decades or 2 centuries? Kwani how much time do we have on this earth?
Suppose you wanted to hatch chicken eggs; you will understand that the eggs will take about 21 days to hatch. But if by day 31 no chicks have been hatched, do you need to be patient and wait for the right time?
If we understand how things work, we don’t need patience.
Life is life
Fabio