Patience...necessity.

I guess some recent developments have taught me a bit about patience. I consider myself to be a fairly patient person (sometimes overly so), but it's never really been an easy task. I think a lot of people have this idea that patience is just some state of mind you somehow attain as you mature, but it hasn't really been like that, not in my experience at least. You just don't magically arrive when it comes to patience.

You've heard of patience being a virtue, but most of the people who use that phrase are those who've never really had to use it. Patience is a force of will more than anything else, and honestly, you only ever really use it unless you've found something worth waiting for, something you feel like you can't live without. Today's culture is all about instant gratification, which is one of the reasons I'm in debt now (patiently working on that too...and improving). The sad thing about that is that most things worth having, most things that are really worth working for, worth living for, will never be had easily. A person who never waits for the things in life will ultimately live a shallow life, a life without challenge, without meaning. It's only through patient pursuit, and all the steps necessary, that you really learn to appreciate anything. You don't take things for granted in cases like that, you treasure them, you contribute to them, you more or less love them. Ultimately, patience is necessary for contentment, for joy.

I guess this is most obvious when it comes to the rough spots you sometimes go through in life, times when it looks like you're on your last legs. Being patient during those times, maintaining hope, it can seem like you're giving everything you've got just to get up in the morning, but if you press through, if you keep moving towards your goals, your dreams, patiently, that will give you the sustenance to keep going. Every day you get through is a day closer to where you want to be. Some days will seem easier, while others might seemingly be your undoing, but ultimately, when you reach that destination, when you're able to hold that which you've been dreaming of, it will all have been worth it. The struggles you took getting there will be distant memories of the past, fading away, but the rewards of finally being where you've always needed to be, that's something altogether worth any price you could have paid and any amount of time you could have spent. It's a place regret never enters, and from which the greatest contentment one can find in life springs forth. If there's somewhere you truly want to be in life, something you truly need to have, someone you truly need to be with, and your choice is to either give up or be patient, choose the latter.