Patience is the foundation of nearly every good habit.
Without it, you cannot save money, learn a new skill, or lose weight.
Patience is also one of the hardest qualities to cultivate.
Patience in this case means the ability to wait things out.
Its not losing your mind in a traffic jam.
Its accepting that healthy habits dont immediately reap rewards.
When we were impatient, we look for shortcuts.
When we take shortcuts,we tend to get sloppyor make bad decisions.
Impatience is evident in the self-help movement.
They sell weight loss without effort, wealth without work, exercise without sweat, or education without diligence.
We eat these terrible ideas up because we dont have the patience to wait for self-improvement.
The quicker that magic bullet comes, the better.
Patience isnt just some high level concept about self-betterment.
Its required for stupid day-to-day things too.Patience is not pre ordering video games.
Its not pirating movie screeners.
Its waiting for proper reviews before buying the next iPhone.
Without patience were consumers who make stupid choices,then whine about how nobody prepared us for the fallout.
Ive noticed myself becoming content withimpatience.
That impatience has become my default state.
In reality, impatience is a recipe for being broke, angry, and unhealthy.
I dont think this is just me.
The mere thought of waiting for anything causes anxiety and dread.
Of course, patience has long been a struggle for mankind in general.
Its called a virtue because its hard, uncommon, and difficult to practice.
But perhaps thinking of patience as a virtue is the wrong approach.
That kind of thinking makes it seem like patience is something you either have, or you dont.
Ive found it most useful for myself to pause before reacting to the day-to-day annoyances that test my patience.
That little bit of thought, several seconds, is often enough to quell that moment-to-moment impatience.
Cultivation of long term patience can perhaps develop from that same habit forming approach.
When you have the luxury to take your time with something, do so.
With any luck, itll be a little easier to achieve those goals.
Illustration by: Angelica Alzona.
