I will give a perhaps slightly different answer to this question: Patience is fundamental to life, and without it there is no real life. Hey, don’t stop reading just yet. Let me explain. 😀
What is impatience?
Every person lives inside their own mind world. We perceive the world through our five senses and we live within that perception. Inside this mind world, we have numerous thoughts, feelings, and habits that pull us in every possible direction.
At the core of the human mind lies an inferiority complex. We are often too familiar with this: the feeling of not being good enough and the need to fill the void inside us. You could say that this inferiority complex drives the thought clutter in our minds. Due to the inferiority complex, our minds are drawn towards the search for satisfaction through love, success, status, security, and so on. This manifests as a sort of greed.
As we engage in a task, these thoughts rush into our minds. Due to the inferiority complex, we crave quick results. When these quick results don’t materialize (which is often the case), we become frustrated and are likely to give up, indulge in self-pity, or shift our attention to something else and repeat the impatient pattern.
What is patience?
Patience is the opposite of what I described above. Patience arises when there is no inferiority complex driving the cluttered thoughts. Patience is synonymous with having a clear mind, and it should actually come naturally to us.
It is only humans who exhibit impatience. If we observe nature, we can see that it’s inherently patient. Nature simply follows its course. Take a tree, for example—it does what trees do. It quietly grows its leaves in the spring and sheds them in the fall. No rush, no fuss. It’s a pure expression of nature. Every creature in nature operates in a similar manner; they live their lives according to their shape and form because they lack individual mind worlds.
Humans also possess this potential. At our core, we have a peaceful, original, mind that goes beyond our sense of self. A mind that is in harmony with nature itself, the true universal mind. If we can live from this mind, our actions will be patient because there will be no cluttered thoughts. Everything we do will be a manifestation of the world itself, in harmony with it, and beneficial to it.
Why is patience absolutely crucial for life?
Unless we discover our true, patient mind, we will live a life of turmoil. We will be constantly pulled from one thought to another, from one emotional state to another. It’s an endless inner drama. We will continue this pattern until we take our last breath. It becomes our fate. We would have lived our lives inside our heads and died without ever truly experiencing the sweetness of reality. This is the actual reason why becoming patient is so crucial.
The path to becoming patient
The way to liberate ourselves from this grim fate is to transform our minds by emptying them of the inferiority complex and the cluttered thoughts. Meditation is the means to achieve this. By introspecting and clearing away the cluttered thoughts and emotions, our minds return to their original state. In this way, our minds become one with reality, and so do our actions.
I’ve been on this journey for almost 10 years now. As I continuously empty my mind, I grow more and more patient with each passing day. I’m certain that this is the way forward for mankind. It’s a much better way to live our lives, and patience comes as an added bonus.
Michael
