The last few weeks have been truly awesome for me, I have been developing and changing a list that is a bucket list of sorts for things, and more importantly, aspects about myself that I want to improve upon and change for the better. The list is constantly evolving and it has been extremely liberating for me to write down and take action towards many areas of my life that were either being given little to no attention.
In this soap opera love story that is me improving myself for the better, I have come across many new and important principles that I have deided should become a big part of my new tao on life. On of these new principles revolves around the idea of having patience. This is a concept that I always new was important, but would many times find myself recicting patience filled mantras to myself in boring situations in order to prevent an ulcer or me jumping out of my seat at the drop of a hat.
My new take on patience is more of the dictionary.com definition,
“the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.”
In the Myspace and Facebook lid en world we live in, where everyone has their face buried in a screen filled with instant gratification, its easy to forget these things. Essentially it means going with the flow and not fighting against yourself or elements that are out of your control. By realizing that certain things are going to be out of your hands and will unfold in ways you may not be able to predict, you can exert not only a level of patience and tranquility of these potential stressful situations, but you can feel at ease knowing that certain things are best left to fate.
This doesn’t mean you should look at yourself in the mirror everyday for a year and think that having patience will get that beer belly and love handles erased. But it does mean that when there is a child crying in a movie theatre you do not get angry and frustrated a situation that is A) out of your hands and B) not really that big of a deal.
I recently came across a story that really put some things into perspective for me about what it means to be patient and trying to exert less control over your life, and I think it just might help some of you guys in the journey to being a more patient person (and by some of you guys I mean everyone 😉 )
There was an old man who was known as the wisest man in a certain village. Whenever someone wanted council they would go see this man. One day a farmer went to him and said, “A horrible thing has happened to me: My ox died. I’m a farmer and I depended upon that ox to get my fields plowed and my crops planted. Now I can’t plant my crops and I’m going to starve. Do you agree that this is the worst possible thing that could have happened to me? The wise man said, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
The very next day the farmer looked out his window and saw a strong, sturdy horse come galloping up to his farm. The farmer wouldn’t have tried to catch the horse if he had still had the ox, but the ox’s death led him to go out and catch the horse. It turned out that the horse was much younger and stronger than the ox and could plow ground much faster. Because of this, over the next couple of weeks, the man was able to plant twice as much as he would have been able to plant with the ox.
The man went back to the wise man and said, “I owe you an apology.” Then he told him the story about the horse. He finished the story by saying, “You were right. My ox dying wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. It was a blessing in disguise. The best thing that could have happened to me was getting this horse.” The wise man said, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
Three days later the farmer’s son took the horse out for a ride. But the horse threw him and the fall broke both of the son’s legs. Since the young man was the only worker the farmer had to help him get in his crops, the farmer was devastated. He went back to the wise man and said, “How did you know that me catching that horse was not going to be a good thing? My son getting both his legs broken has to be the worst thing that ever happened to me.” The wise man said, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
The very next day troops came to the village to take every young man away to fight a war that had just broken out. The only young man who wasn’t taken was the farmer’s son who was laid up with those two broken legs. Tragically, a few days later the village got word that every one of those young men had been killed in that war.
So remember, relax and practice patience, because no matter what bullshit is going on in your life right now, its all good at the end of the day.
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I love this post, for two reasons.
The first is this quote: “This doesn’t mean you should look at yourself in the mirror everyday for a year and think that having patience will get that beer belly and love handles erased. But it does mean that when there is a child crying in a movie theatre you do not get angry and frustrated a situation that is A) out of your hands and B) not really that big of a deal.”
Too many people are lazy about things that are under their control (like sorting out their lives), and worry too much about things out of their control (the aforementioned crying kid). The key is to find what is in our hands and what isn’t, and dedicate our energy to the former and not the latter.
The second is that whole wise man story that has long been one of my favorite stories. It just shows that things are what they are and we don’t need to assign judgments to whether they’re good or bad or neither (at least, that’s what I get out of it based on my life experience).
Keep up the good work yourself.
@Brett
Awesome man, thanks for your support