be more patient

I would like to think I’ve come a long way since before I marked this down as a thing I’ve wanted to do. I don’t know if I’ve been patient for the wrong reasons, though. It was more as a means to lower my stress levels than to improve my karma by tolerating others better. I’m going to do this again.

I’ve taken up meditation. It seems to be something good to go with trying to be more patience. Impatience arises from needing to do something or be somewhere – it befuddles the mind with unnecessary thoughts. The purpose of meditation is to not think, not even be – it’s proven a bit of a challenge initially, but I’m finding it easier to sit still now. I really want to accomplish this goal soon – er… I mean, whenever.

It seems to work wonders on trying to stay patient with someone. Whenever I feel even the faintest prickle of annoyance, I take five deep breaths and it really does quell my impatience. It’s the only way I can remember not to lose my temper.

My sister has an annoying habit of borrowing things off othere people: shoes, clothes, money – pretty much anything she needs. She’s often the reason I’m losing my temper so much telling her to stop her sponging, but I was quite surprised at myself yesterday when she asked (not for the first and last time) could she borrow something and I said “yeah, sure” and thought nothing about it. Well, I’m writing this retrospectively, and it didn’t really cross my mind as being a big deal anymore. Hurray for little victories over impatience!

It shames me to say it, but while I’m becoming a lot more patient and accommodating of other people (strangers, workfellows or acquaintances I mean), I’ve noticed how snappish I am with my family – people I speak to everyday. Maybe I take them too much for granted, but I really wish I could be a lot more patient with them too. I’m so horrible to them sometimes… :(

Well, I don’t know if you could quite call it patience, but I think I’m progressing well with this one. Over the past week, every time I felt myself becoming peeved with someone, I remembered to just take a breath, calm down and not make such a big deal out of things.

I’ve decided recently I really should try and work on my patience. I’ve been so snappish to people lately, or complaining incessantly about bus and trains running slower than they should that I really must be a nightmare to have to listen to. As a happy coincidence, I found out on the radio today that this will be the start of World Kindness Week, which gives me a great excuse for trying to be a little more enduring of others and late trains. ^_