Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, difficulty, or annoyance without getting angry or upset.”

I don’t know anyone whose life is free of these. In fact, I can’t recall a single day in my own life when at least one of them didn’t make an appearance.

For many years, my reaction to the presence of any one of the three was to get “angry”—or at least “upset.” Then I realized that this response served only to make an already stressful and unpleasant situation worse.

So, I began making a conscious effort to respond to “delay, difficulty, or annoyance” differently. Sometimes the best I could do was “tolerate” their presence. But I kept at it and, with practice, I became better able to “accept” them open-heartedly as an inevitable part of life.

When I could do this—tolerate and sometimes even accept delay, difficulty, or annoyance—I noticed two things.

First, being patient is a way of treating myself with compassion. Compassion is the act of reaching out to those who are suffering—including ourselves.

I definitely suffer when I’m impatient because a lack of patience is a stress response to whatever is going on in my life. I can feel the stress in both my mind and my body.

And so, cultivating patience is a way of taking care of myself, which is the essence of self-compassion.

Second, I noticed that being patient gave rise to a feeling of equanimity—a calmness of mind that makes it easier to ride life’s ups and downs without being tossed about like a boat in a storm.

Seeing the correlation between patience and enhanced self-compassion and equanimity convinced me of the value of this practice. I thought, less suffering and stress, coupled with calmer acceptance of life as it is…sounds good.

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Thank you ….Recognize that impatience has arisen.

This may not be easy at first. When things aren’t going our way (for example, we’re stuck in traffic), we tend to think that the cause of our impatience is external to us—what’s going on “out there.

But, of course, the cause is what’s going on in our own minds—that is, our response to whatever circumstances we’re facing.

So, start by setting the intention to watch for impatience arising in your own mind as a response to not getting what you want right away.

You may know some of your triggers already: being put on hold for a long time; getting stuck in a long line; struggling to figure out a computer problem; facing an extended wait at the doctor’s office; having to listen to someone take what seems to be an interminably long time to explain something simple (this last one being a trait of mine that tests my own family’s patience!).

Notice how impatience arises when we’re not getting our way—specifically, when people or our environment aren’t conforming to our expectations, even in circumstances over that we have no control (for example, the flow of traffic or the length of a line).

Our expectations are often out of synch with reality. I can think of four ways in which this is true, and all four can be triggers for impatience.

Do you want to add a word or two?

First, we tend to expect the environment to conform to our expectations: no traffic jams; no absence of parking spaces near our destination; no long lines; no airport delays; no waiting too long for food to arrive at a restaurant.

Second, we tend to expect people to conform to our expectations. They ought to behave the way we think they should behave.

That woman ahead of me in the check-out line should not be making small talk with the cashier. If he said he’d phone at 3:00, he should phone at 3:00. Even if we’re “right” (it is polite, after all, to call at the time you say you will), the fact remains that people often don’t live up to our expectations.

Third, our expectations are often unrealistic when it comes to mastering new skills, whether it’s taking up a new craft or figuring out a new computer application or learning a new do-it-yourself fix-it skill. We think we should be able to master new skills quickly, no matter how foreign or difficult they are to us.

Fourth, our expectations are almost always unrealistic when it comes to what goes on in our minds. We think we should be able to control what thoughts and what emotions arise.

Your comments…

But unwelcome thoughts and emotions pop up all the time. It’s the nature of the mind to think and to emote; in my experience, there’s no stopping it. Certainly being impatient doesn’t put a stop to it!

How impatience feels in your mind and in your body.

Allowing yourself to really feel the impatience is a major step toward accepting its presence. This is important because, in my experience, I can’t begin to transform a stressful mental state until I accept that I’m caught up in it.

So, work on becoming well-acquainted with how impatience feels.

Is your mind calm or agitated?

Is your body relaxed or tensed?

I have yet to experience impatience as pleasant in either my mind or my body.

And the realization that it feels unpleasant helps motivate me to try and change the way I respond when I’m faced with “delay, difficulty, or annoyance”—our three friends from the dictionary definition.

Begin to transform impatience into patience.

This takes practice—patient practice. And because patience is an act of self-compassion, I hope you’ll treat yourself with compassion over your inability to be patient at times.

Let’s start with those times when the environment or people aren’t conforming to your expectations: for example, you’re stuck in a traffic jam.

First, notice that you’re responding with impatience. Second, pay attention to how it feels in your mind and in your body.

Is there anything I can do to change the situation without making matters worse for myself or others?

If the answer is “no” (which it almost always will be), then see if you can find what I’ll call “the good” in the situation. By this I mean, begin to focus on something pleasant or interesting while you’re waiting.

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