When my wife and I were first married, we lived in a tiny, old cottage in Redondo Beach, California. We painted the house, put in a lawn, and planted flowers. The soil was rich and loamy, and everything we planted flourished. We assumed it was because we were such good gardeners.
Two years later, we moved to Phoenix, Arizona. We moved into a new home in the desert and assumed our gardening skills would transfer there. But the clay soil was like concrete. I had to buy a pick just to break up the ground enough to plant snapdragons (they died). Our intentions were good, but we knew nothing about growing things in the desert. We needed help.
“Citrus,” the nurseryman said, “grows great in Arizona.” So we bought an orange tree, a lemon tree, and a grapefruit tree. We dug the holes, added the mulch and nutrients, and planted the trees. We watered them and waited, anticipating the day when we would serve fresh-picked fruit to friends on our patio for breakfast.
The trees grew well, but there wasn’t any fruit. The same thing happened the next year. We had lush foliage but nothing to show for all our work. So we went back to the nursery for advice.
“Time,” the nurseryman said. “It can take three years for fruit to appear on newly planted citrus trees in Arizona.” That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, but it gave me hope. That next year, we had one small orange, a couple of anorexic lemons, and one Texas-sized grapefruit. But the following year, the sweet smell of citrus blossoms gave way to dozens of fruit on each tree.
During those initial years, I really wanted the fruit and it was hard to wait. I could have gone to the grocery store and purchased a bag of oranges, a bag of lemons, some grapefruit, and a roll of tape, and just taped the fruit onto the trees. Then I could honestly say there was fruit on my trees. But I would be rushing the end result, which would have defeated the purpose of the tree.
Trees aren’t supposed to display fruit; they’re supposed to produce it. As much as I wanted to see results, I knew that I had to wait. The tree had to become healthy and mature before it could produce the fruit, and that takes time.
That’s true in our relationships as well. We would love to see people “shape up” and fix the problems in their lives right away. But it takes time for real change to take place, if it happens at all. To keep from being emotionally trapped and frustrated by other people’s lack of progress, we need to accept the reality that growth and healing often take time.
Comedian Bob Newhart once did a classic routine where he played the part of a psychologist. Every time the woman in his office began describing her symptoms and phobias, Newhart would yell, “Stop it!” That was his solution to every problem: “Just stop it!”
We love watching that in a comedy routine, but it’s probably because we recognize that tendency in our own lives. We see someone trapped in a behavior that’s causing pain for themselves and everyone around them, and we think, “Why can’t they just see what they’re doing and STOP IT?”
But we also know from personal experience that it’s almost impossible to just stop something that has been a pattern in our lives for years. Once a pattern has taken root in our lives, it’s like yanking a fifty-year-old oak tree out of the ground. It’s possible, but it takes time and usually involves dealing with one root at a time.
Addicted to Hurry
English prime minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.” We’ve heard that patience is a virtue, but it’s tough in a microwave society where we’ve become used to quick solutions. If someone hesitates for one second when the traffic light turns green, people begin to honk. When a shopper in the grocery store checkout is sorting through their coins one penny at a time to make exact change, we’re ready to call security. If a website doesn’t load within a second or two, we get frustrated and move to a different site.
I was a college professor when personal computers first came onto the scene. The faculty at our school attended four days of training on how to use computers. The first program they demonstrated was a simple calculator that would add, subtract, multiply, and divide. But the program was on a cassette tape, and we had to press “play” to load the program onto the computer. It took about six minutes to load, but that didn’t bother us since we were focused on what we could do once it was done.
Can you imagine waiting six minutes for a program to load on your computer today?
Maybe that’s why we tend to be impatient with our relationships. We’re surrounded by instant everything, and we want instant solutions from the craziness people bring into our lives. We feel like they’ve taken residence in a little corner of our lives, and we’re not sure how to move them out.
We’ve heard that patience is a virtue, but we assume that the person who said that was an only child raised by hyenas. If patience is such a good thing, then why is it so hard to exercise when we’re surrounded by craziness?
Part of it is our environment. When we’re immersed in a culture of instant gratification, patience isn’t our default setting. We’ve trained it right out of our lives. As a result, we’re more easily irritated when people don’t change. Often, people do change, but it doesn’t happen overnight. One area of their life improves, but we focus on the many areas that still produce pain. We forget that genuine change takes time.
The Value of Time
Business classes often discuss two principles of economics:
For example, a corner convenience store usually offers name-brand products (quality) and easy parking (convenience)—but you’ll pay a lot more for those items (price). A mega-warehouse store offers top quality and great prices, but you’ll park farther away and stand in long lines (convenience). There are also stores that are known for extremely low prices and convenient access, but you’ll sacrifice quality.
That’s similar to how relationships work. We meet people at a wedding or other social event (convenient) and make a brief connection with them (time), but we haven’t yet developed the kind of friendship where we share our deepest feelings (quality). Other people have become close friends (quality) because we’ve lived through life events together over the years (time); but they have moved out of the area, so it takes a concentrated effort to maintain that friendship (convenience).
Then there are those people who drive us crazy. If they’re a casual acquaintance, it’s easy to blow them off and avoid them so they don’t irritate us. But when it’s a family member whom we can’t avoid, it adds another dimension. It might be someone we really care about, but we don’t honestly express our feelings because we’re afraid of their reactions. We would love to see them change, but it seems like it will take forever (if it happens at all) and we lose hope.
It’s true that they might never change. But even if they do, it won’t happen immediately. Quality relationships are built over time, not overnight. The more we can accept that reality, the less frustration we’ll feel.
I recently read about a master craftsman who builds violins for a living. He is meticulous about quality, but convenience goes out the window. Working full-time, he only makes one violin every nine months. But people pay between $80,000 and $100,000 for that violin when he’s finished.
People who have learned to handle the craziness of others have developed the character quality of patience, knowing they can’t rush growth.
The Secret of Patience
When people cut us off in traffic, we usually assume that they’re incompetent, arrogant knuckleheads who think they own the road. We make character judgments about them and feel justified in our reaction. We know they’re crazy. But we’ve cut others off accidently because we weren’t paying attention. It wasn’t intentional; it was a mistake. Probably.
We don’t really know what’s going through another person’s mind, even though we’re convinced that we do. A person who possesses patience might still get upset when someone cuts her off. But she has learned not to interpret the other driver’s motives. The other person might have done it on purpose or might have made a mistake. Neither one makes it any better, but a patient person doesn’t give away the control of her emotions to the other person by stewing about it the rest of the day.
It all goes back to truth. If we know what’s true in a situation (i.e., another person’s motives), we can make accurate decisions about how we should respond. If we don’t know what’s true, we have only our assumptions. If our assumptions are wrong, our interpretation is wrong and our responses will be inappropriate. With inappropriate responses, we’ll never be able to respond with patience.
Patience doesn’t mean sitting and waiting for another person to change. It doesn’t mean we passively allow others to abuse us, and it doesn’t mean every encounter with them will be comfortable. Patience is what develops inside of us between those encounters. It’s the characteristic that helps us stay strong when things are tough over the long haul.
So, where do we get patience if we don’t have it? People often joke that we shouldn’t pray for patience because God will bring crazy people into our lives to teach it to us. I don’t think that’s very good theology, but it makes an interesting point.
Like any other positive trait, patience is something that builds into our lives over time. Just as muscles grow through repeated exercise, patience grows as we repeatedly practice responding to others in healthy ways.
If you brush your teeth twice a day, two minutes each time, it adds up to over twenty-four hours at the end of a year. What if you decided to be more efficient and do it all at once? Take the day off work, start at midnight, and brush for the next twenty-four hours straight. You wouldn’t have to brush your teeth for an entire year!
The same thing is true of patience. We can’t get a giant dose of it and expect it to last all year. It’s something that develops in us as we choose the appropriate response in each situation we encounter.
Learn from Looking Inward
Suppose that ten years ago you had written down what you expected to be like today; not about your possessions and successes, but about your character, attitudes, and actions. Looking at who you are today, how do you feel about the progress you’ve made? Are you where you thought you would be? Are your attitudes and integrity what you had hoped for?
Most of us would say, “I’m still in process. Yes, I’m doing better, but I have a long way to go.” Patience is when we focus on the process rather than the lack of results. It’s learning to give ourselves a break for not being perfect.
That’s what needs to happen in our relationships with others. Learning patience means seeing through the lens of truth:
A good example is someone who has suffered a brain injury. Casual observers notice how unresponsive the person is and how little they can do. A close family member sees that reality but also becomes excited at the smallest sign of progress, such as the squeeze of a hand. They’re improving, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
Patience allows us to let people change at their own pace. Without it, we’re putting all of our hope in future progress instead of living in present reality.