It is not a coincidence that the wise karate masters are portrayed as men of patience in movies. If you want to control yourself, and in doing so, best control your environment, you must learn to master patience.
The world comes speeding at us faster than we can control it. Our brain works to synthesize the stimuli provided by our senses, and turn it into some type of manageable thought that fits with all of the other thoughts that came before it, in a split second. At the same time, our emotions that underlie thought step in, and try to mesh with the thought to see if we can make the everything work together smoothly – or if there is going to be some work that is needed first.
The feeling of unbalance that we feel when things are no meshing is our body’s way of warning us that something is off. Its our internal signal, a blinking warning light if you will, that we need to step back and see what is out of place. We all experience this alarm in different ways, but I am sure you have it.
For me, it comes as anxiety. For others, they just feel unbalanced. Some people tell me that they feel like something is missing. You get the point.
So how do we fill that gap? With patience.
Patience allows us to live with our warning light and try to figure out what the real issue is. You see, many of us either ignore the warning light all together, which comes back to bite us later in life, or pull away from the situation, which also is a decision, and can impact our life negatively. The better option is patience to figure out why the warning light is going off.
This requires living with the instability for a little while and introspective work, to think things through a little deeper. I have found that the answer is always out there, you just need to gather more information, and that can take time – and patience.
So learn to live with your little warning signs, and become comfortable with them. They are there to guide you and protect you. Don’t ignore them, or make rash moves due to them. Rather, be patient with them, and tread carefully forward, since you are on dangerous ground, and the decision you re making is important, and should not be rushed, rather well thought out.