Patience is an Attitude

The other day I stumbled across this quote on Pinterest.  I was intrigued by it.... very intrigued by it actually. These words kept coming back to me over the course of the next few days. 

Anyone who knows me well knows that I would not be considered a patient person. 

I do not like to wait... for anything.

I do not like things that "just take time".

I do not like to "wait and see how it turns out".

I do not like to be hungry.

I do not like to repeat myself over and over with my children.

I do not like to slowly work out from under debt.

I do not like to sew - way too much patience involved with that hobby.

I do not like to wait for my children to get their chores done.

I do not like to wait for my husband to give me his full attention :)

I can be a very deliberate and instinctive person.  I don't like to wait around.  If I'm going to do something, I do it.  Get it taken care of.  Be done with it.  However, there are a lot of things in life that don't work when they are rushed.  There are a lot of things that simple cannot be rushed no matter how badly we would like to move them along. For example, my body cannot create another life without working on it for 39-40 weeks.   I cannot make my clothes washer and dishwasher go any faster or my clothes and dishes will not be clean. As much as I'd like to sometimes, I cannot make an 8-hour work day go any faster than 8 hours.  There is something we are meant to learn from our waiting or a reason for time passing.

I realize that patience is NOT one of my innate virtues.  It is something that I need to work at.  I used to pray and ask Heavenly Father for patience.  I quickly stopped because it seemed that instead of helping me to gain patience, He, instead, gave me opportunities to learn patience.  Um, no thank you.  I do not like to wait, remember?  That is why I am asking for patience NOW!

So, I stopped praying to be patient with myself, the people in my life and the situations in my life that were not the way I wanted them to be.  Instead, I prayed for strength.  Strength to endure and improve strained relationships, strength to endure working when I want to be home with my kids, strength to endure hard times, and strength to endure tough situations.  Even while praying for strength though, I still felt something was missing - the "endure it well" part was missing.

The past week or so, as I have pondered over these words, "Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting,". I realize that I don't need to ask for patience.  I don't need to learn patience.  I need to practice having a good attitude.  I need to pray for a positive outlook while waiting for things.  I don't need to beat myself up anymore for not being a "patient person".  I don't need to feel guilty that I am not patient.

I just need to work on my attitude towards waiting and practice being more grateful!

As a result, I have now been asking my Father in Heaven to help me be positive, help me see happiness, help me to see things from my children and my husband's perspective.  And you know what? This week has still been challenging! But I have worked really hard to keep a positive attitude.  I have not told myself "BE PATIENT!" like I used to, or berated myself, saying, "Why can't you just be patient!".  I just try to calmly remind myself to keep a positive attitude.  There have still been some weak moments, but for the most part it has been working and I hope it continues to help me.

I'm going to print out the poster, above, and put it in my room.  I know I'm going to need a reminder next week.