Today I am thinking about patience, and also the fact that I don’t have any.

No, I mean it. Sure, everybody has moments of impatience with life’s annoyances and frustrations, but my lack operates on a bigger, wider, more GARGANTUAN scale. I am absolutely sure that my greater purpose in this lifetime is to learn to be patient, but just knowing something doesn’t make it happen. Even though I recognize the lessons the Universe throws me, I am not able to make any permanent changes in my behavior. I can’t tell you how very impatient this makes me.

I don’t know my own birth story, but I’ll bet you I was born a little early, too impatient to remain in the womb. At age four, I took to sitting on our little porch with the newspaper, impatiently waiting for my reading skills to kick in. Later, I couldn’t wait to drive the minute the law allowed, but the Universe had provided me with a dad who forbid it because, he said, teenagers’ brains don’t function well enough to drive safely. Yeah, but what about all those other kids?! Anyway, I had to wait impatiently until I was a junior in college to get my license, finally instructed by a fellow student. Oddly, I actually owned a car before I could drive it. Oh, and I flunked the driver’s test twice, just to test my patience, I guess.

As a young adult, I was impatient to marry a wonderful man and have babies. It was my destiny. The Universe delayed finding the wonderful man until I had crossed the unofficial (this was the 1960′s) line into spinsterhood. I didn’t marry until the ripe old age of twenty-nine! Getting such a late start, I was impatient to get started on the babies, but the Universe stepped in again and we were told by doctors that there wouldn’t be any babies. It was a temporary setback and there were wonderful babies, but my patience was again sorely tried.

Over the years there have been countless circumstances to try my patience, each of them an opportunity to learn to lie back, relax, and let the Universe do its own thing at it’s own pace. It appears that I have learned so little, though.

Even now, in my golden years, I am impatient. I want my book to sell quickly, I want my website to reach readers faster, I want my healing practice to grow at a greater pace. It’s all happening, but more slowly than I would like.

But here’s how I know that the Universe loves and understands me: I have been given the perfect mate. He is a remarkably patient fellow who steadies me down, smooths me out, convinces me that all will be as it is meant to be. I need constant reminding and he is always there to do that, patiently.

Think about that.
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A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Dutch proverb

With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
Chinese proverb

The real secret of patience is to find something to do in the meantime.
Doug Larson
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