A Little Patience Please

I got a sourdough starter kit for Christmas and am figuring out the slow and steady way to make bread. It takes time. Lots of time. Apparently, sourdough is not like making regular bread. You must watch and wait, wait and watch. You must feed the starter at a specific point. You must knead the dough in a specific way. There are numbers to consider: How many grams of flour, water, salt? How many hours of wait time? When to stretch and turn the dough? How hot the oven? How long the cook time? It all takes vigilance and patience.

I’ve also been helping to maintain the Poinsettia’s at church. We bought, in the neighborhood of, forty plants and they are striking and vibrant. But they wilt quickly and are a challenge to keep looking fresh. It’s a wait and see game. It’s figuring out how much to water and when. If you place a dry plant in the sink and completely soak it, you need to let it sit and drain as much water as possible before replacing it into the liner. And let me remind you of the number—forty. It takes some time to check each plant, then place them in the sink, water and return them. If you water the plant where it sits, you may end up with a puddle on the floor, or the plant may give up anyway. Poinsettia’s are delicate plants—don’t over water. Don’t under water.  They drop leaves like a windy day in autumn. Even the slightest touch sometimes creates leaf fall. With that said, you will need to sweep up, as well. Several times.

Still, I have enjoyed the interaction with the plants and their willingness to revive after the watering. It was fun to join with others to decorate the church and Poinsetta’s are such show-stoppers. The church looked so amazingly festive that the effort is worth it. Working with the flowers does put me in the immediate vicinity of Jesus on the cross—a most sacred and humbling place. I like to chat with Jesus and Mary as I water, rearrange and sweep up, so it’s all good.

“Slow and steady wins the race” —or so they say. You do remember the race between the tortoise and the hare, and who was the winner there.

Slow and steady is a recipe for patience. Yet, it does not tell us that we must also be vigilant. Because observation of the slow, (indeed, sometimes glacially-slow) growth or movement of changes can be challenging. It calls for us to be alert; be watchful of that intended object, and make small adjustments along the way. Who among us can remain alert and attentive?

In addition, we must tolerate the wait. I want to have you think about how long the average person can wait – for anything, really without complaining, without angst or frustration. Who among us can remain unperturbed with the wait?

“It takes just two-and-a-half-minutes for the average person to lose patience when kept waiting.” ~ Mirror

Can you believe that about half the population will leave a queue after five minutes of waiting? A quarter of us have missed out on money by refusing to stand in line for refunds. Ben Renner (with StudyFinds) tells us folks can last nine minutes on hold with customer service without losing their cool. I personally have waited 45 minutes on hold, but I was not a happy camper. I don’t know if that means I failed or passed the patience test.

John Anderer reports on a survey that tells us the average person grows frustrated after waiting just 16 seconds for a web page to load and 25 seconds for the traffic light to change. The top three things we cannot be patient with are: slow internet connections, being put on hold and dawdling drivers. (From a poll by myHermes)

I can relate to that dawdling driver thing: once (years ago) I was late for work and impatient to get there. I got pulled over when I went around a slow-moving vehicle. My trouble was the yellow center line and the police officer who was sitting by the roadside just as I made my illegal move. It was only my honesty that kept me from getting a ticket. I was still late for work, but got a good story and a plausible reason for being tardy.

Patience is defined as forbearance, toleration, resignation, stoicism, composure, accommodating, understanding, unflappability, and more. Can we be persevering, persistent and tenacious? Can we be watchful and observant as well?

“One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.” Chinese Proverb

I get a chance to practice my patience almost daily because I live with a four-year-old who is as “slow as molasses in January”, “slow as a glacier”, “Slow as frozen peanut butter on cold toast”, —you get the picture. It’s not a new thing for me. Patience has been a characteristic I have prayed for and sought my whole life. I am not a patient person. I freely admit it. I’m working on being patient. I was happy to learn there are ways to extend my capacity for patience.

If you feel like you have become less patient, you are not alone. Recent cultural shifts have primed us to expect immediate gratification. Consider the half-hour sitcom that poses a problem and solves it within the timeframe allotted. So many of our wants and wishes are available to us instantly, if not sooner. Living in a culture of having it our way, NOW means we lose patience easily as we go about our daily life.  

“Our expectations go up and then our level of patience goes down.” Says clinical psychologist, Scott Bea, PsyD.

I know I’ve said this before, but please bear with me as I remind you that the commercials on Television offer instant gratification of all our needs; even the ones we didn’t know about before they told us. And they tell us we deserve it, so that feeling of entitlement goes hand in hand with impatience. We want what we want when we want it and television commercials tells us we can and should have it. 

Here’s a novel idea: Let’s not listen to or believe them.

Here are some tips for practicing patience:

(By The Way, Dr. Bea says these may be slightly uncomfortable)

1. Practice Mindfulness – be in the moment.

2. Practice accepting the current circumstances – even if they are unpleasant.

3. Actively build tolerance for being uncomfortable: Let other’s go ahead of you in line.

4. Consciously slow down; see the value in moving slowly.

5. Resist the urge to immediately fix everything, from relationship issues to work issues.

6. Practice being a good listener

7. Be playful: Take yourself less seriously

Find this list at: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/7-tips-for-better-patience-yes-youll-need-to-practice/

Notice what it feels like when you lose your patience. Are your hungry, tired or rushed? When we recognize the circumstances that trigger our impatience, we can better prepare. Practice being patient with smaller stuff and that will lead to being patient with larger stuff. Sometimes stepping away physically or mentally helps us maintain calm. Sometimes just laughing at the situation relieves our stress and helps us cope. Shifting our attention to the smells or sounds of the environment while waiting in line, or doing standing stretching or body movements like neck rolls, slow stretches and foot rolls helps keep us patient. Stepping back to see the situation in a broader perspective helps ease the tension. -Will this matter five, twenty or a hundred years from now?

On August 17, 2016, Awdhesh Singh answered the question: Why do people have less patience nowadays? He says patience is directly proportional to the time you have at your disposal. He says time slows down for you when you feel impatient. Modern people are trying to do too many things at the same time, or for the time they have. Yet, if we can manage our time well, we have “all the time in the world.”

Which brings me back to the sourdough starter. I am hoping to eventually learn this new skill of creating sourdough bread. In addition, my gluten-free starter is even more challenging than the gluten-included variety, but I like to play in the kitchen. Because I am retired, I do have “all the time in the world”, unless I spend it on other things like waiting for my web page to load, waiting on hold on the phone or waiting in line at a stoplight.

Slow and steady not only wins the race, we gain a chance to practice being patient. We gain the opportunity to be watchful in our waiting and to nurture ourselves and others.We get a chance to daydream while on hold, to breathe deeply and exhale fully. We get to slow down to the speed of a life well lived. Not multi-tasking can be a very good thing.

Here’s hoping we can all have a little more patience in 2022.

Resources:

Average person loses patience after waiting 2.5minutes, By Mirror.co.uk, updated on 20:37, 2 Feb 2012 at: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/average-person-loses-patience-after-142355

Average Person Lasts 9 Minutes on Hold Before Losing Cool; Millennials Most Patient By Ben Renner, Feb. 26, 2018. At:  https://www.studyfinds.org/customer-service-survey-millennials-most-patient-generation/

Hurry up! Modern Patience Thresholds Lower Than Ever Before, Technology to Blame by John Anderer, September 3, 20-19 at Study Finds: https://www.studyfinds.org/hurry-up-modern-patience-thresholds-lower-than-ever-before-survey-finds/

Why do People have Less Patience Nowadays? answer by Awdhesh Singh, Ex-IRS, UPSC, Educator, Time Management Coach, August 17, 2016, at https://www.quara.com/Why-do-people-have-less-patience-nowadays

7 tips for better patience: Yes, You’ll Need to Practice! from Health Essentials, January 17, 2019, at: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/7-tips-for-patience-yes-youll-need-to-practice/

The Power of Patience: 5 ways to Develop Patience written by eM Life teacher, Ninette Hupp on Jan 13, 2020 at; https://emindul.com/2020/01/13/developig-patience/