This article is part of [1] The Virtuous Human Series.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Marina Tsipenyuk.

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.”

Patience – an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.

We can look to the Book of Job in the Old Testament for one of the greatest examples of the virtue of patience. God and Satan lay a wager, testing whether a pious man, Job, will continue to have faith in God after suffering continuous evils for no wrongdoing of his own.
God allows Satan to make Job sick with an intolerable skin disease; He burns his house down, kills off Job’s livestock, and even all of his children. Job is left utterly alone, sick, and miserable. And why? Why would God inflict such wrath upon an innocent human being? And how could such a human be patient through it all, live through it, and still pray to God?

I have always struggled with the Book of Job, and I cannot tell you exactly why it is included in the Old Testament, but if we are to take this analogy and use it in our own lives, we can reason that life is not always fair. Crimes are not always justly punished and merits are not always rewarded. Our goals do not appear effortlessly, and the people in our lives can nag at us incessantly.

The bottom line is that we always give ourselves a reason for NOT being patient. But when we really evaluate situations, the nagging is not reason enough to explode. The duration with regard to our goals is what keeps us so eager to achieve them. And things are not always fair, so complaining is counter-productive. What Job can teach us is that we can live through difficult circumstances, not let them tear us down, and still have hope. We can do this through patience!

Five Ways to Become More Patient

1. Breathe. Allow yourself to breathe, even in the most difficult moments. This allows you to take the situation in without overwhelming yourself. I was once in a situation in which I could not find my car in a parking garage. I was so scared and confused that I began to hyperventilate and lose focus of the situation. The moment I began to regulate my breathing was when I caught hold of the situation and was able to deal with it.
2. Wait Your Turn. One of the best ways to practice patience is when you are in line. We are in line for something constantly, for instance, in the grocery store or at the bank. And you can always hear myriads of complaints, “God, this line is unbearable”. Instead of getting annoyed that the line is too long, too hot, and completely a waste of time, think less of the line and more about your goals. This is a perfect time for you to think—patience can make you an optimist!
3. Listen. When in conversation, we are often so eager to speak that we forget to listen. Be patient. Allow the other person to speak, even if you think they are nagging you or that you already know exactly what they are going to tell you. Humans tend to operate in such a way that we listen to everything in terms of what we already know. If something sounds familiar, we put it into a category, when really, we may not be experiencing the essence of the conversation because of this. By being patient, you may learn something new.
4. Speak softly, don’t yell. When we are fed up by a situation, we may, at times, lose our patience and explode. By conscious of what you are speaking at any given moment. Do not lose yourself in your anger and let it overpower you. Patience is, in many ways about being free from the power of your emotions.
5. Endurance. Like Job who endured the fact that life was not fair, we often must endure difficult situations. There are some things in life that we have no control over, and we can only do what we can to be the best that we can be in those situations. If we are to accept that, then we can be powerful, at least over ourselves, in every situation.

This post is part of [1] The Virtuous Human Series. There will be many articles in this series — make sure you [2] subscribe so you don’t miss a thing!

This is a guest post by Marina Tsipenyuk.