I know that I’ve quoted the philosopher Kierkegaard at least once before on this blog. In relation to sharing Mr. Kierkegaard’s words, I believe I explained that as he is widely regarded as one of the first existential philosophers, his sentiments lend themselves more easily to a broad based application or personal interpretation. When I decided to talk about patience today, I had in mind this particular quote I’m about to share. When it comes to relationships and the art of patience, it describes the most basic essence or benefit of such.
The quote reads as follows: “Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
Did you have a thought when you read that or heard it? Well, for me, it describes the primary detriment of impatience. When we are unilaterally focused on a goal or have an end game in mind and when we crave instant gratification or a fast-forwarding of sorts (aka impatience), we tend to lose perspective. Not only do we lose a potentially valuable viewpoint, but we risk losing our way altogether. We “hurry” right past where we wanted to be.
Actually, I am going to stretch that sentiment a little. Not only do we run the risk of journeying beyond where we wanted to end up, but sometimes we’ve made that journey to get there so unpleasant that even if we land in the “right” spot, it feels unfulfilling and empty. We are left with negative feelings. Achievement of the goal becomes anti-climactic and disappointing. We wonder why we wanted to get “there” to begin with and feel lost contemplating what’s next.
There are so many applications of this principle in relationships that it is difficult to know where to begin. I am going to discuss two more profound examples because I’ve witnessed them and experienced them in some fashion time and again.
The first is the person who wants to elevate the status of his/her relationship. This could mean a variety of things to someone. This could be as benign or general as getting closer to or more serious with another human or could be as serious as seeking a particular status, such as engagement or marriage. Please do not sit wherever the hell you are and pretend like you have never ever been this person or around a human exhibiting this kind of one-track-mind behavior. I’ve been this person and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Not even a little. I’ve desperately craved elevation of a relationship to the point of foolishness. I’ve blindly sought signs of a stronger level of commitment. An official pronouncement of a relationship, family and friend introductions, vacations, living situations, and even the possibility of marriage and children. I’ve wished and hoped and prayed for it all. I’ve hinted and pushed and even thrown some ultimatums into the mix (do not, and I repeat, do NOT do this). Just to tie this example up with a bow, I want to explain where I ended up. And I want to tell you that sometimes I did get some version of or all of what I was looking for from my significant other. Still, I typically ended up feeling sad, unsatisfied, wary, and very weary. Exhausted.
There are a couple of reasons for my fatigue. Most notably, I worked my ass off to get there. Not the good kind of work. The kind that feels empty and lonely. Also, I had to do a lot of dancing around to shove all my negative feelings down every time they roared up to the surface and told me that if it was meant to be, it shouldn’t be quite so difficult. This really sucks my friends, but sometimes, when something isn’t happening, it’s because it isn’t meant to happen. You have to decide whether you want to stay on the train with the existing scenery or whether you want to jump off and find another landscape. There should be no “he’s going to get there, I just need to show him the way” but there should be “this is the relationship he is willing to have and it [doesn’t]works for me.” You see what I did there? It’s gutting but really that simple.
The other kind of person is usually the figure that emerges once the goal has been reached and the roadblocks overcome. This is the person who has pushed and shoved and clawed his/her way to where they wanted to be, and faced with, well, reality, they are struggling with managing the balance between what they wanted and what it actually feels like. What I am going to share right now might feel like a contradiction to you but I promise it is not, at all. If you’ve decided that you HAVE to have something and then you get it, you can’t spend your life picking it to shreds. I mean, you can, but that is a colossal waste of time and energy. Plus, it’s mean as shit. That does NOT mean that you can’t change your mind about another human or a relationship or a situation. Everyone should reserve the right to rethink things. What it means is that when you go into something with eyes wide open and it comes to you served on a silver platter, you shouldn’t whittle away your days finding fault with it.
People do this all the darn time and I wouldn’t be surprised if any of you have been in that position. I haven’t because I operate in different circles of dysfunction, but I have friends and co-workers and family members that have certainly been there.
Real quick, I am also not saying that you should accept whatever shit the universe (or another human) dishes to you just because it’s what you think you wanted. Along with reserving your right to change your mind, you should also give yourself leeway to adjust your standards. Big time.
Let me explain so I can bring you to my middle-ground way of thinking here. You really want to marry Brad. He’s your jam. You know he is a bit selfish and self-centered. He’s shown you that he talks over you and is often careless. He might be loving and funny and smart too. Anyway, after sufficient brow beating, you get Brad to put a ring on it. Suddenly you have no patience for Brad’s selfishness and self-centered behavior. You pick on him for every bit of carelessness and chastise him when he talks over you. You get it, right? I’m not saying you have to take all of Brad’s shit. I’m saying that Brad has always been Brad. You can walk away, but if you are going to stick it out, you have to give yourself a reality check and exercise patience. We are all flawed and you were lucky enough to see Brad’s flaws from day 1. So, instead of knocking the shit out of him, patiently find a way to navigate around it. Or patiently leave. There’s no patiently staying while annihilating Brad. You feel me?
In both of the situations I’ve described, and there are countless more, you fail to enjoy what you thought you desperately wanted because you refused to exercise patience to: figure out if it’s what you really want, allow it time to get there organically or teach you otherwise, and/or give another human space to be the person they’ve always been (or space to grow into someone else, if that’s going to happen).
Patience doesn’t mean sitting like a lump. Not even a little. It doesn’t mean constantly compromising your values and giving up your wants. It means keeping a close touch on reality. It means allowing humans to be humans, flaws and all. It means understanding that we don’t always get what we think we want and sometimes what we get is better and sometimes it sucks but there’s almost always a lesson there.
You can be patient or watch the world around you implode…quickly or nice and slow. The choice is yours.
I hope you have a weekend filled with honesty, bravery, compassion, awareness, patience and above all, love.
Talk to you on Monday.
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 