Patience is not a virtue of mine

Patience has never been a virtue of mine. As I wrote in my post about setting goals, I’m known for the famous 101 Unfinished Projects and besides setting my goals wrong (a little too far out of reach), my impatience is stopping me (to reach any goal that is out of immediate grasp). Lately, I have noticed that this impatience comes together with a tendency to lose my temper with people.

I decided it was time to do a quick Google search on the topic and a few results shocked me.

  • People who suffer from severe impatience are often considered to be arrogant, insensitive, and overbearing.
  • Excessive anger arises from the following character weaknesses: selfishness; the need to control; pride; impatience

Oh, dear… is that me…?

  • Many factors can lead a person down the road to impatience. One of the biggest causes is stress.

Oh, yeah… that’s me!!
And I am also quite aware that the reason I am stressed is because I am a perfectionist. I seriously try to let go, but judging voices are ringing through my head.

One strong voice is that of my mum. She visited and stayed with us for a couple of weeks last month. On the day before she left, she asked me jokingly whether I was relieved to see her go. My honest answer was that I was happy to have her with me, and that we had lots of fun, but that after more than three weeks it is kind of nice to go back to normal life, which means being able to let go a bit and lower the standards back to my own. Her reply was “You mean even lower than this?”

How long is your fuse?
I actually find that it is as long as you want to. Being patience is a decision. When something is about to trigger my loss of patience, there is always this split second in which I think, “shall I breathe deeply and grit my teeth, or shall I just throw out all my frustration here?” The latter option seems most easy and satisfactory. Especially when you can blame someone else for your misery. But I find it is perfectly possible to choose the first option. After all, I never threw my oldest daughter from the balcony when she was a baby and screamed for hours on end. Then why do I often choose to explode over minor things?

I searched for advice to become more patient. I have read about counting to ten, breathing in deeply, write down the triggers, take a time out, etc. But there were three tips that seemed most useful to me and are things to work on.

  • There is no such thing as magic. If you think that things will happen immediately, or people can do things in an instant, or changes are made overnight, you’ll get disappointed and impatient every time. Good things take time.
  • Relieve frustration and stress in a healthy way, like running a mile, or some other form of exercise. Or try yoga or meditation.
  • Love and laugh. Instead of losing your temper with relatives and friends, realize how much these people mean to you and love them, laugh with them. They are more important than the thing you ask them to do, or not to do.

The List

There is always “The List”, says my friend. She even pronounced the capital ‘L’. “And you are on the bottom of mine”, was my answer.
She knocked on my door two days earlier and surprised me with a visit. Of course, I knew that she was in the country, but I did not expect a personal [...]

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Birth order affecting Personality

Having a second child, makes me look upon the first one very differently. Instead of the baby of the family, she is now the big sister. Her role has changed. She knows it. And she is living up to it.
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Meetings - Part 1: The gynecologist

The posts are rushing through my head, but I can’t find time to write it all down.
Every day I find topics that will make interesting articles. So many interesting meetings/ interactions with people. So many little happenings that make me stop and wonder. But where is the time?
Perhaps I should do only one-liners for [...]

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Give me one good reason

As you have probably noticed, I haven’t posted in a long long time. When you just had a baby, you find that your priorities are shifting. All of a sudden I wonder why I was blogging. Did I not have anything better to do? And to great disappointment of my husband there are more [...]

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Body image and little girls.

My 5-year-old daughter wants to be on the Oprah show. (So, Oprah, when you read this… ) A while ago I was watching a show of Oprah in which the guests were all contestants of The Biggest Loser. Immediately, my daughter came up with a plan. If she would eat herself fat first, then she [...]

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Having a (sleeping) baby

If you asked me five years ago what it is like to have a baby in the house, I would have said that it very exhausting, a big shock, frustrating, etc. And it would all be an understatement. I would also admit that it was worth it, that I never smiled as much in my [...]

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