July 31, 2013

“If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not speak then unto me.” – Shakespeare.

Hundreds of years after the death of William Shakespeare, no one has ever come up with a statement affirming this, or so I think.

However, it is a well-known fact that we all can make a guess and sometimes those guesses can be right or wrong. There are certain things that we can actually predict something and it is going to be true because we need not be a magician or a fortune teller to know that. Some of those things might not necessarily be seen, perhaps felt, maybe.

For instance, think about that act which gives you painful feelings sometimes with tears the moment you walk out of a fight scene without retaliating, or that same act that gives a sharp pain when you allow someone to go unpunished no matter how much he or she has wronged you, or even that same act that gives you a hurtful feeling after you let go of those things that are yours, which someone claims as his, not because you can’t fight back, but because you want to let go.  To cut the long story short, it’s called “patience”.

Patience is the answer or rather the solution to everything and that is why Arnold Glasow argued about it, saying; “you get the chicken by hatching the egg and not by smashing it.” And the only reason why you witnessed the egg as it hatched, is because you are in fact patient enough to wait. Likewise, if you are patient enough, in time you will realize the grain that will grow and the one that will not.

Shakespeare asked this question, “how poor are they that have not patience”?

Yes, Patience is what we are going to discuss today, so join ‘Yar A Turai in order to find out how much of it do we even have.

###

Brave men like Julius Caesar admits that; “it is easier to find men who will volunteer to die than to find those who are willing to endure the pain of patience”. This is due to the fact that patience is indeed painful, painful beyond imagination. Its pain eats deep down inside you, making you speechless and can sometimes give you a temporal moment of insanity, and that is why Thomas Kempis argued that; although all men commend patience, only a few are willing to practice it. Could this be true? Only you can answer that.

But believe me or not, patience is indeed a worthy habit because it saves you a lot. It saves you from anger, it saves you from wasting your energy on unnecessary things and above all it saves you from self-destruction.

So my question here is “are we really patient?” How much patience do we have? How much patience do we really need in order to be patient?

Though from experience, I strongly believe that patience is hard and difficult, but it’s very important to note that all things require a certain degree of patience. Castles are not built in a day; neither are all the riches you’ve seen around you made in a moment. But one thing I realized is that despite all the pains, bitterness, the difficulties and what not, the gains of patience are really sweet.

Some the gains are immediate, while some may take ages; but the fact is that it is worth being patient. Yes, being patient pays. It’s rewarding and sweeter than you’ve never expected, and that is why Joseph Addison claimed that “our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses, and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.”

Napoleon also says; “Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success”. Therefore it is good to understand that patience has the ability to provide answers to questions, solutions to challenges and success to anything in life.

Many times, the degree of patience you need to exercise in order to separate success from failure is very little, but why is it that humans find it so hard to adopt?

I think the simple answer is, one really needs to have a lot of patience in order to be patient and you can only achieve this through self-discipline. Learn to tell yourself “No” when you feel the urge to say “Yes” to a negativity, and learn to tell yourself the other way round. Learn to also tell yourself “Stop” to something that isn’t right, no matter how desperate you feel to go ahead and most importantly, learn to be patient at all times because there is a saying that if it were joy all through, men will never have learn to be brave.

Think of how better Nigeria will be if its people are patient with one another. Think of what we can achieve if we start being patient with ourselves and the others. Think of how many good things we will achieve together, think of how many lives we can save, and think of how many properties we can prevent from being destroyed. Let me borrow the words of Elbert Hubbard; “How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success?” For one to achieve success he really needs to be patient because at most times, what separates success from failure is not up to an arm’s length.

A wrong calculation or rather an act of impatience may stop you from achieving your goal, therefore you need patience in order to build up the strength towards success. You need patience to develop courage and to keep up the hope for success. Yes, you also need the patience to pray for success. And yes, you need the patience to be successful.

Let me live you here to ponder these questions yourself and to find out if you are really patient enough or not? Most importantly to learn about how patient are you towards others? And how much patience do you need to have in order to be patient?