Have you ever gotten to know someone fairly well and then seen them act in a way that seemed totally out of character for them? If so, you were probably shocked at their behavior and wondered if they’d changed or if they had been hiding their true personality around you. While those are both possibilities, there may be something else going on. It may be that you just hadn’t yet seen them act in that particular way, such as losing their patience, until then, so you thought that they never did or couldn’t imagine them doing so. If so, then you probably hadn’t been in a situation that tested their patience and made them react accordingly. There are many ways in which someone can act differently than you anticipated, but I’ll focus on patience for the remainder of this post.
Suppose you’re lifting weights at a gym and you see a guy who can easily lift a weight that you find extremely heavy. While that is a great demonstration of strength, it doesn’t show his full capabilities because that weight feels like nothing to him. A better test of his strength would be for him to lift a weight that feels extremely heavy to him, which will reveal his upper limits. This comparison is what came to my mind when I started thinking about patience and how it manifests (or doesn’t in some cases) differently in different people.
For starters, I don’t have to be patient in situations that don’t upset me. I don’t even have the option to practice patience in those situations; patience only enters the picture when I start feeling one or more negative emotions. So if I’m feeling positive or neutral, then I’m not being patient. It’s only when I start getting upset that patience means anything, and being patient when I really don’t want to is a sign that I’m doing well (at least in situations where patience is warranted). Over time, I’ve gone from having very little patience to having a lot more of it to not needing it as much. I still use patience almost every day and lose my patience every so often, but it’s become less necessary for me since I’ve gotten much better at managing my emotions and not as many things upset me as they once did.
Patience, like strength, varies from one person to another. One person may go through the roof at something that doesn’t even make someone else bat an eyelash and vice versa. Two people can be in the same situation and use patience completely differently: someone who gets upset easily may refrain from doing so, thus demonstrating a great deal of patience, while the other person may not need to use any patience at all if they are much harder to upset. Even if two people are using patience to remain calm, one person may need to use more than the other, and they may also have to start using patience sooner.
As humans, we are so complex and are surrounded by countless things that all influence (whether subtly or overtly) our behavior. You know more about the things that affect your mood than anyone else since you know yourself much better than anyone knows you, but there are many things that can influence you even though you never notice them. When it comes to the things that I know affect me, I’m much more upset by a series of small frustrations than I am by one giant frustration. Paying more attention to the things that nudge my mood in either a positive or negative direction has made it easier for me to keep my emotional state stable and to recover more quickly from major mood swings. It’s also given me more compassion for other people who act differently than I’m expecting; they could be going through a hard time caused by any number of things, and I may very well act the same way if I were in their position. This reminds me of a great saying that I will now paraphrase: Nobody goes from 0-60 instantaneously, and if it looks like they did, you just didn’t notice how long they had been at 59. With this in mind, I’m going to make more of an effort to notice when someone appears to be hurting and to respond compassionately if they act out. I’ve greatly appreciated the people who have done that for me and I want to pay it forward in the hopes that this will become the norm. After all, we could all use a little more love, compassion, and understanding.