If you’re anything like me, sometimes patience escapes me. I know it does. I’m not afraid to admit that sometimes, I just want things to happen quickly. Patience has always been something I have worked on, and still do to this day. I know I’m not the only one who has to remind myself to take a deep breath, be patient, but persistent.
In pursuit of one’s goals, sometimes people get caught up in the process and forget about the end result. There’s this fixation on the current situation and that’s all they can think about. And this, my friends, is a mistake. If you’re so worried about the current state of things that you forget about what you’re after, you’ll inevitably remain where you are.
So how do we balance it? This persistence and patience struggle? We practice both. We remain persistent in the pursuit of what we want most in this world. We don’t let ourselves forget what we are after, even in the most challenging of times. It’s inevitable that there will be struggle, there will be challenges, and life will happen. But we cannot let life’s effects linger longer than they need to. There’s more important matters to attend to than yesterday’s troubles.
We practice patience at the same time. Persistence towards a valiant end goal is necessary; how else does the work get finished so that we end up where we would like to be? But we also must be patient. We remember the compound effect. If we just focus on being 1% better each and every day, we will see improvements in no time. But we cannot radically change everything in one single day. For as quickly as things turn for the better, they can turn for the worst, too.
It’s a challenge to be both persistent and patient. But we must if we want to achieve our deepest goals and dreams. There’s something to be said about sticking to our goals, even when the resistance is strong. The thing about resistance is that if you’re seeing it, it means you’re doing something right. No coal became a diamond without intense pressure, but they also didn’t adapt overnight. It took patience and persistence to become the gems that we see today.
