Week 23: Be Patient

It has been several weeks since my last post; my apologies to any regular readers. It is so easy to get distracted from one's practice of anything (healthy eating, exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling, blogging) by any large or small change in one's routine. For me it was the arrival of summer, a garden in need of weeding, travel opportunities, and juggling work demands to allow for longer weekends.

This week Dr. Hanson reminds us to be patient: timely advice in July when vacation travel peaks. Air travel, traffic jams, and summer festival crowds gives us plenty of opportunity to practice patience. High temperatures and high humidity can raise our baseline physiological arousal levels to the breaking point, making it harder to wait our turn, be kind to others, and to refrain from angry outbursts.

Patience is a virtue in all the world's major religions and philosophies. In psychology, it usually refers to a decision-making strategy to delay short-term gratification for longer-term gains. It applies equally well to a variety of situations and endeavors, and it is a skill that can be cultivated. It is related to frustration-tolerance and self-regulation, and predicts successful outcomes. Early studies included the so-called marshmallow experiments with school age children.

Ah, but we live in an on-demand world now and expect things to work quickly and our every need immediately gratified. Email and texting seem to demand an instant response. Communication that used to take hours or days or even weeks, now circles the globe in minutes. A popular commercial for a phone company asks young children what is better: faster or slower, bigger or smaller, shared or not shared. Guess what: kids who may have saved their marshmallows rather than eating them a generation ago are now asking for faster, bigger, easier to share!

In Buddhist thought, patience also includes not doing harm. Doing it softly rather than abruptly, kindly rather than meanly, tenderly rather than with harshly. Sometimes we may need to take action and assert our needs, but if we do it with patience we may have better long term results: preserved or even enhanced relationships, positive feedback in terms of our effectiveness, and a sense of calm and serenity.

I was not thinking of this practice in particular on a recent flight back from California. My intent was to reach my destination four hours ahead of my daughter's return from Europe.

A computer malfunction delayed then cancelled our flight. All passengers were off-loaded and instructed to retrieve baggage and rebook. Sitting far to the rear of the plane, the line at ticketing was already backed up to ground transportation by the time I got there. I dashed to baggage claim, called the customer service number, calmly explained the need to meet a minor by a certain time, waited patiently for the inventory check, and ended up with a seat in first class and 20 minutes to spare at the destination. Needless to say my thanks were profuse.

It was scary to think that my daughter would be the only child without a parent to greet her, but I had faith in her ability to cope, her teacher's careful supervision, and the airline coming through. The tension between fear and faith is a fine line to walk sometimes. Letting go of fear, which is often an old fear rather than an immediate fear of imminent danger, can help you feel more patient. There is indeed enough to go around and you will get what you need in due time.

Hope you have safe and happy vacation travels.