Are you patient?
According to Wikipedia, patience “is the ability to endure difficult circumstances. Patience may involve perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in disrespect/anger; or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can have before disrespect.”
The thing is, you can be patient or impatient with yourself and with others. Other people may not learn as fast or act as quickly as you want. You may not learn as fast or act as quickly as you want.
But does impatience, being disrespectful towards others or yourself, really make anything better or anyone learn faster? Does it change anything other than you hurting yourself and other humans?
"Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.” – Saadi
When you're mindful, you notice impatience when it arises and can let it go.
When you're compassionate, you notice everyone struggles with some things. That it's okay to struggle. And that the best thing you can do is show compassion and offer help.
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." – Leo Tolstoy
Reading Recommendations
How to Practice Patience for Mindfulness - dummies
“Patience is an important attitude to practice for any mindful living approach. Helen Keller, the American deaf blind political activist is quoted as saying, ‘We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.’ The quote makes a valid point. If every time you meditated, you were filled...”
“I knew I wasn’t as sharp when I was operating mostly on caffeine and adrenaline, but I was obsessed with my work, and I felt that sleeping a lot was lazy. Now that I’ve read Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, I realize that my all-nighters, combined with almost never getting eight hours of sleep, took a big toll.”
I don't know how CPUs work so I simulated one in code
“A few months ago it dawned on me that I didn’t really understand how computers work under the hood. I still don’t understand how modern computers work. However, after making my way through But How Do It Know? by J. Clark Scott, a book which describes the bits of a simple 8-bit computer from the NAND gates, through to the registers, RAM, bits of the CPU, ALU and I/O, I got a hankering to implement it in code.”
Weekly Mindfulness Practice
Here's a mindful music listening exercise.
Pick a piece of music to listen. I like instrumental pieces for this, as lyrics add a whole extra layer.
Take a deep breath and pause for a moment, before listening to that song. Use headphones if possible.
While listening, you can focus on different parts of the experience:
- What do you notice in the music? Which instruments are playing, how fast or slow do they play?
- What do you feel in your body? Of which parts of your body are you more aware?
- Do any thoughts or feelings come up?
Just notice without any judgement. Afterwards, take a moment to check in with your body, breathe, and notice any changes to before the exercise. Did the piece of music feel right or would you pick something else next time?
End Note
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Have a great week
Simon
PS: If you found an article you think others might like, and that fits this newsletter, I’d love it if you write me an email. Just reply!