Being patient with Patience

Why do I struggle so much with waiting?

This question haunts me more than ever now, as I sit here reflecting on the different seasons of waiting in my life. First, it was career - the endless months of hoping for the right opportunity, refreshing my email inbox, wondering if my time would ever come. Then it was for moments of joy and fulfillment - thinking that once I achieved certain goals, happiness would follow naturally. Now, it's maybe love - perhaps the most profound test of patience I've ever faced.

                                   

There's something fascinating about how our capacity for patience ebbs and flows. Some days, I feel like a monk - perfectly at peace with where I am, trusting in the timing of life. Other days, the waiting feels like an open wound, raw and persistent. Scientists say our brain processes waiting as a form of mild pain, but in my experience, there's nothing mild about it. It can be intense, all-consuming, like watching sand slip through an hourglass you can't turn over.

In physics, there's a concept called potential energy - the energy stored in something before it's released. I've started to think of waiting as a form of emotional potential energy. All this longing, all this hope, all this patience - it's not just empty time. It's energy building up, preparing us for what's to come.

But here's what I'm learning: this energy needs somewhere to go. On my best days, I channel it into growth, into becoming the person I want to be for the people in my life. On harder days, it turns inward, creating storms of doubt and urgency.

Taking this notion and through my own experiences, I've come to recognize three distinct experiences of waiting:

1. Active Waiting: Like my career phase, where each day was filled with actions - applications, interviews, skill-building. This kind of waiting has a rhythm, a purpose. Even when it's hard, there's something to do, something to build.

2. Passive Waiting: The kind that comes with seeking joy and fulfillment. You can't force happiness to arrive, just as you can't force a flower to bloom. This waiting taught me that sometimes, the very act of waiting is transforming me in ways I can't see.

3. Uncertain Waiting: This is something I cannot control. It's different from the others because it involves something out of reach. Example, another person's timeline, not just my own. Some days I tell myself, "Be patient, the people you need are on their own journey." Other days, the loneliness feels too heavy to bear philosophically.

There's an old tree outside my window that has become my teacher in patience. Year after year, it goes through its cycles - blooming, flourishing, shedding, resting. All alone. It doesn't rush through winter wishing it was spring. It doesn't cling to its leaves when autumn comes. It doesnt wish for anything.

Sometimes I wonder - does the tree know that spring will come? Or does it simply trust in the rhythm of life? In my own seasons of waiting - for career, for joy, for love - am I meant to know that my spring will come, or am I just meant to trust?

The truth is, I don't know any profound solution to the challenge of waiting. Some days I handle it gracefully, finding peace in the present moment, believing that everything is unfolding as it should. Other days, I rage against time, wondering why my path seems longer than others'.

But maybe that's exactly what makes waiting such a powerful teacher. It shows us both our strength and our vulnerability. It reveals our capacity for hope and our susceptibility to despair. It demonstrates how we can hold two truths at once: that we're exactly where we need to be, and that it's okay to wish we were somewhere else.

Just like the tree outside my window, perhaps we're not meant to know exactly when our spring will come. Maybe the real growth happens not in the arrival, but in how we learn to stay present in the waiting itself.

And so I continue to wait - sometimes patiently, sometimes not. Sometimes with grace and calmness, sometimes with anger. With boiling rage to rushen up things according to my will. But always with the quiet hope that this too is part of my story, this too is shaping who I'm becoming.

After all, aren't we all waiting for something? Maybe the real art isn't in learning to wait perfectly, but in learning to be perfectly calm and human while we wait.