I once thought of patience as an enemy. I don’t mean the typical cliché, but it really bothered me. I felt it when waiting for a product, a game download, or an event to arrive. But I was wrong, deeply wrong.
Patience, when properly contextualized, is an incredible vehicle.
When we experience it poorly, we end up placing enormous expectations on an event. Then the event arrives and, having loaded it with expectations, we destroy it. Often we don’t experience it as we should—I won’t say badly, but not as well as it could be either.
Patience prevents us from starting therapy, for example. Mental health isn’t what society portrays: it’s as fundamental as physical health. A complex and vast topic. Seeing patience as an enemy leads us to avoid it, with the risk of making everything worse.
If instead we see patience as steps, like the steps that Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu already spoke about, steps that gradually build, everything changes. But do you want to understand how? With a simple but powerful addition: micro-gratification.
My gamification mindset probably thought of it, I don’t know. Certainly shifting the concept from gratification to micro-gratification allows us to better observe patience and appreciate its intrinsic power.
Patience leads us to think, reason, and build. If gratification is the big finish line, micro-gratifications are the intermediate milestones. Put together, we have the strength to face them and raise the stakes.
In short, after many years I understood that it’s not an enemy but a significant ally. This doesn’t mean denying the beauty of anticipation or the desire to see and experience something, but if we approach it positively, patience can give a lot.
I’m not writing this as a mere philosophical post about patience, but to help, if possible, other people. People perhaps like me struggling or having difficulty with many life issues, but with the possibility of changing through reading and thinking.
I want to share this thought of mine, and also achievement, with you. One of many fragments.