Patience is defined as the propensity to wait calmly in the midst of frustration or adversity. Patience is often referred to, both in everyday life and personality research, as a virtue or character strength. Being patient is typically seen as a positive, although we will unpack patience today, and talk about the good and possible perceived bad sides of patience. I think we can all say that 2020 has been an exercise in patience, and impatience!
We will look at the positive and possible perceived negative sides of practicing patience (when it is to our benefit for well-being, and when what we think is patience may not), and specifically how each type of patience seems to contribute to our well-being in unique ways. First, let's look at the different types of patience.
Researchers in psychology that study patience often categorize patience in 3 forms: interpersonal, life hardships, and daily hassles.
Interpersonal patience is the degree to which we are able to express or experience patience, thus avoiding annoyance, with other people. Teachers and caregivers practice a lot of interpersonal patience.
Life hardships patience is the degree to which we are able to experience patience when we are going through a difficult time, such as a relationship break up, pursuing a challenging goal, or living in a pandemic.
Daily hassles patience is the degree to which we can calmly wait through things like traffic, getting kids ready for school while also getting yourself ready for work, or dealing with the daily challenges of an illness or disorder. Each type is uniquely related to well-being, according to survey studies.
High levels of interpersonal patience reduce the likelihood that we will experience loneliness. This is most likely because we are willing to put forth the effort to maintain a friendship or other type of relationship even when the relationship presents challenges. Loyalty to another person while dealing with the typical challenges that come from interacting with human beings that have different attitudes, beliefs, perspectives, or routines requires patience, but that patience pays off with the rewards of connection.
This sort of patience is probably challenged quite a bit right now. Especially when you may be staying home much more than ever before, interacting with the people you live with much more, and recognizing differences in attitudes (political, societal, scientific) between you and these important people in your life.
It is important to recognize that there is a difference between being patient with others and being passive or disconnected. Being patience strengthens your bond with another human being in a way that is typically founded in trust and respect. Passivity is not agreement to disagree or respectful, it typically results in the build up of resentment and the perception of being misunderstood, disrespected, or being 'taken advantage of'. This experience does not strengthen a bond, but rather destroys a bond, respect and connection. This does not contribute to well-being. This experiences can also lead to internalizing behaviors, like rumination, and can lead to depression or other serious conditions that are self-destructive.
Life hardship patience is also being tested quite a lot right now. It is safe to say that nearly all human beings are experiencing some sort of life hardship right now, and many human beings are experiencing multiple life hardships concurrently. Research tells us that being patient during life hardships is different than interpersonal patience, in that this type of patience is likely to lead to resilience or persistence through the hardships. It is correlated with goal achievement, in that being patient as you persist through challenges instead of giving up results in a greater likelihood that you will reach your goals. Patiently persevering through a pandemic looks like this: avoiding social gatherings, staying home more than you like, cancelling plans, working differently or facing unemployment. These choices help you achieve the goal of not getting COVID-19 and not spreading COVID-19, or at least reduces the risk of either happening. You are helping the greater good by practicing this type of patience and perseverance.
I don't want to make light of life hardships. There are a lot of them right now, and some, or the cumulative effect of many, may make it very difficult for you to practice patience. In fact, it may seem that putting patience aside and taking action is the more suitable response. I don't want to be patient with systemic racism. But inaction is different than patience. I will act on my desire to quash systemic racism in any way I can. I will also be patient with the process along the way, because quashing decades of racism won't happen overnight. I don't want to be patient with the impact that the pandemic has had on my family or my community, so I will take action by doing my part to flatten the curve and talk to others about the importance of flattening the curve, and patiently wait for a vaccine. These things are hard. Being patient is not being passive or complacent. It is recognizing that change doesn't happen over night. And it is easier to be patient when you are also taking action toward achieving a goal, like ending a pandemic or ending systemic racism. So, please don't misunderstand patience and how it differs from these other experiences.
Also, I feel I need to make a disclaimer here. As a white person, I have never had to deal with someone acting racist toward me. So, I recognize it is easy for me to say I am going to take action to rid our society of systemic racism while also being patient. I am not asking for patience from someone who has feared for their life, who has feared for the lives of their children, or has in any way experienced the very real danger of racism. I think that might be a step too far for me to say that. That would be my demonstration of white privilege, and arrogance, to tell you to be patient, and I won't go there. Not for one second.
The last category of patience is for daily hassles. Daily hassles include things like commuting to work, managing a household, or managing an illness or disease. These things can cause underlying, low level stress every day which can accumulate and be very destructive to our physical and emotional health. So it is important that we recognize the stress(es) and find a way to patiently deal with it/them. They are not likely to go away, so managing our stress through awareness and patience would be best. Which brings me to the research on developing patience.
Studies have found that there are no real detrimental effects of practicing patience in these three areas. As a matter of fact, it appears that there are some real benefits, as laid out previously, to all three. Some studies have looked at whether practicing 'excessive patience' might lead to some negative outcomes, but it turns out that isn't true. As long as you distinguish between being patient and being disconnected, passive, or passive-aggressive, or in denial.
Since being patient turns out to be good for us, and it is also rather challenging to varying degrees for each of us to practice, you will be happy to know that researchers have looked at ways to cultivate patience. There are some simple things we can each do to develop patience for ourselves, our circumstances, and other people.
The first step is to become more aware of our emotional experiences and our circumstances. Take time to think about your positive and negative emotional experiences and what the triggers are for them. The more you practice thinking about your emotions and their triggers (things that elicit those emotions), the better you are to become aware more naturally.
Meditation. The more you practice meditation, the more you rewire your brain to be more aware of your emotions and the world around you. Just 10-15 minutes per day is enough to encourage this rewiring. Think about emotion regulation. How can you prevent certain emotional experiences from happening by controlling the circumstances that elicit those emotions, and how can you encourage the circumstances that elicit positive emotions more regularly? How can you regulate the negative emotions?
Stress coping strategies. Finding healthy coping mechanisms (see a previous blog post on coping mechanisms) and practicing them regularly can help you reduce the intensity of your emotional responses to stress, thus allowing for more patience.
Practice perspective taking to help foster empathy and compassion for self and others. The more we can 'put ourselves in someone else's shoes' the easier it is for us to empathize with them and show compassion for their situation. Empathy and compassion elicit patience. We need to practice this for ourselves, as well. Recognize your situation, how much is going on in your life, and practice empathy and compassion for yourself, so you can be more patient with yourself, too. Don't be so hard on yourself! That doesn't help you solve problems or feel better, it is more likely to quash your self-esteem, self-efficacy, and foster feelings of hopelessness or depression!
Finally, as part of the perspective taking process, think about past situations where you did not practice patience, empathy, compassion for others, and reframe the situation. How could you have handled that better, and what might the outcomes have looked like if you had?
Patience. We need more of it now than ever. Not passivity. Not denial. Patience. With ourselves, our loved ones, our co-workers, our clients, our boss. Everyone. That, while we do our part to push our world forward, toward a vaccine and treatment for COVID-19, toward an end to racism and bigotry, toward more peace, love, and understanding.
Be safe, stay well, take care.
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