The Patience of Getting on with Things

I'm stuck on a packed train in the morning. I can smell the morning-ness on other people. The smell of freshly showered with the mingling of coffee breath. It's raining outside (as usual), so we can't crack the windows open without having the rain pelt our heads from a usually fast moving train.

The irritation and impatience is palpable. Eyes are rolling. Deep exasperated coffee-laced sighs appear to be fogging up the already foggy windows. Nobody is pleased.

The woman who is sitting on directly next to me looks like she's about to leap out the window from frustration. "I can't believe this is happening again!" she says a little bit louder than necessary. "This is very irritating." Her irritability is coming off of her in great big plumes and penetrating the strained quiet that we are bent on maintaining. I can't stay quiet much longer.

"Well, what are you going to do?" I say.

"I can't do anything about it! I'm not happy about this!" she replies. She's getting visibly more purple.

"That's exactly it. You can't control this situation, so you have to wait it out. Like the rest of us. We're all going to be late to work or school and we can't do anything about it. So there's no need to get mad about it." I respond.

I've said my piece now.

The thing is, minor and major inconveniences are part and parcel of our daily lives these days. From email that loads far too slow, to missed buses, to missed deadlines. And my favourite: people not doing what I asked them when I asked them.

Any combination of these can lead us into emotional states that range anywhere from minor irritation to out and out rage.

Lately, I've been sensing the constant current of irritation that comes from encountering minor inconveniences daily. I've had to pull away from others because of foul moods. And I've taken to supplementing my diet with far too much comfort food as a result.

But because I believe that everything comes with consequences and trade-offs, my very human, albeit miserable behaviour has been to nobody's benefit, least of all, mine. In a bid to "fix" something that I know I can fix, I've had to remind myself that patience is the well from which creation, curiosity, and contentment spring. I've had to remind myself of these things:

Nothing happens without patience: We fail in life. All the time. And if we're lucky, we fail a lot. Patience is linked with knowing that the good things take time to happen. Of course, there are things like perseverance, grit, courage, all linked with the good things. But without patience, we're apt to throw our hands up.

Patience requires gratitude: Being trapped on a crowded train is to nobody's taste. It helped to remind myself that I had a job to go to, that I didn't have to walk to, and an understanding team that was familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the public transit system

Patience comes with acknowledging the fine line between what you can and can't control: We can't control everything that happens to us. We often can control whether we choose to see things one way or another. This isn't a bid for positivity (I wouldn't preach that!). It is however, worth understanding that our reactions may need to be in proportion with the situation.

Patience requires regular practice: Lord help me sometimes it's just easier to imagine smacking someone upside the head from the absolutely asinine thing that they just uttered. We all have those moments. Reminders to cultivate patience are crucial in those moments where resolve is being tested and nerves are being frayed. These are teachable moments.

We have very human tendencies to get quite grumpy when things don't go our way. It's the seedy underbelly of being a creature with forethought and introspection. But what is our weakness is also our strength. We are given the incredible power to understand our own actions and the fact that we are complicit in the outcomes that they produce. I'm making a promise with myself to have more patience in my life. Time is short; I'd rather spend it in a state of awareness rather than in a fog of my own undoing.

PS: If you want to read some good things about patience, here are some of my favourites:

Kafka on Love and Patience (Brainpickings)

Four Steps to Developing Patience (Psychology Today)

On Irritability (The Book of Life)

On Leaving Things Behind

When I was young, my family moved a lot. By the time I was 10, we had moved more than a dozen times. These journeys weren't all terribly well-planned. Sometimes we'd have a very short time to get our things together and go. I learned very quickly not to get attached to things that I wouldn't be able to take with me if the time came (and it almost inevitably did). I have one distinct memory of moving from my maternal grandmother's home. I tried as best as I could to stuff all 50 of my very thin fairy tale books into a suitcase, working my way around the nooks and crannies, wrapping clothes around them. I remember thinking that I probably wouldn't be able to do that next time around.

My frugality with things has continued throughout my life. I have always been reluctant to buy things that I didn't absolutely require. I still don't have a dining table or a blender. My bibliophilia has continued on unabated, such that when I moved into my current home, my books made up half of the boxes that were moved into the house. Though my home is filled with the things that I love, and it feels very much like a home, I always think twice about adding to the lot.

When we travel, we often make lists of things that we ought to be taking with us, to prepare for different scenarios on the trip. My own sister usually puts together entire outfits in case we have a nice dinner, or a beach day, or a trip to a museum. Lists can be extensive from various hair implements to the appropriate footwear (carry the one).

For most of my adult life, I have tried to travel as lightly as I can. It helps that most of my clothes are fashionably neutral and I don't wear much in the way of makeup, so the complexity is somewhat reduced. Still, I find myself asking the question, what can I leave behind? rather than what can I take with me?

There is a good lesson in how we conduct our lives here. In the days where minimalism happens to be in vogue, and everyone is engaged in the life-changing magic of tidying, it does us good to have an inventory of the habits, the people, the thoughts that we can leave behind. After all, just like the acid-wash jeans that served us when we were younger, some things just no longer do; after a while, they might even start to look a bit ridiculous.

We are deeply attached "what ifs" and "just in cases", all to prepare us for some inevitable future of our own mind's making.

I've found that there is an art to leaving things behind, that only comes over time, and out of habit. Though difficult to oblige, we realize that the unnecessary and seldom useful take up valuable space in our psyches. Like old clothes, or an extra pair of shoes, they hang around, claiming a territory that might well hold something more useful. Once we recognize that these eventualities may not exist, and that we are perfectly capable of making do if necessary, that space then becomes occupied by something more luxurious and more potent: potential.