patience

"Patience is a virtue"

"Everything comes to him who waits"

"They also serve who stand and wait"

"Patience surpasses learning"

"Beware the fury of a patient person"

Our society seems to value patience. In words at least. And, especially, in others. I've been accused of being patient quite a few times. What I think I convey to others as a quiet self-comfort and an ability to dispassionately and logically deal with many, many events and experiences during a length of time that can only be due to stubbornness can be easily covered by the word patience. And, I suppose, I do appreciate my ability to be patient with people, with things, with the Universe; it gives me the ability to avoid reacting compulsively in most situations. I guess you could call the ability to calmly and collectively analyze a situation, especially one with intense emotions involved, come to a logical solution and enact said into a favorable conclusion a virtue. I suppose being able to wait around for the Universe (because it's fucking old and has nothing but time to do anything) to help you to help yourself find what you're looking for has its merits.

But definitely, definitely, the anger of people who are normally slow to anger is, when it eventually comes, terrible. Especially when one has tested the limits of that patience, someone who has decided to rely on that patience so much as to be able to consider it abuse. Therein lies the problem with patience. Those with patience have the ability to wait for a seemingly endless amount of time, with little immediate negative repercussion, and slowly produce an outcome they find favorable, so long as said outcome is possible. Unfortunately the patient person is generally (though not always) waiting on someone else, and the patient person has, in effect, put a large portion of power into the hands of the other person, waiting for them to do whatever it is they need to do. Granted, it is never a good idea to give up your power, but it is the patient person's ability to do so which is so desireable by others and those who have no patience are the worst about relying on those who do. Eventually, one of two things happen: the patient person's wait is justified with a favorable outcome or the patient person's patience is tested, strained, abused. Then comes the fire.

I'm quite slow to anger (unless we're talking about the "news" on tv), I have a cool head and a relaxed personality, but I have very little tolerance when I feel like I'm being used, or abused, or just plain wronged. My patience gives me the ability to deliberately assess a situation and be quite flexible with the amount of time it may require to come to resolution. That all changes when it becomes clear that my outcome is looking less and less possible, when my wait is turning to an eternity with little progress to an end, when I feel my patience is being misused, drawn out deliberately for a purpose not intended to meet my goal.