patience is a booti virtue

To lose patience is to lose the battle. ~ Gandhi

In a world obsessed with fast results and overnight success, patience has become the trend setter. We believe patience isn’t passive. It’s powerful. In fact, the superpower packs some serious punches as a silent virtue that transforms chaos into clarity and frustration into flow.

Imagine a young musician frustrated at the slow progress of mastering his instrument. Day by day the musician practices, but the sounds that come out are far from beautiful. However, instead of quitting, the musician sticks with it understanding that mastery takes time. Years later, the musician performs in a concert hall, the music resonating perfectly with the audience. Patience turns an amateur musician into a maestro, and the learner into an expert, and a dream into reality.

True growth, whether it’s health, healing, love or learning, demands time. That same discipline lives in nature, creativity, and even the healing process. As the Taoist proverb reminds us: Nature doesn’t hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Patience is not about waiting around. It’s about how you show up while you wait. In a world that often demands immediate results and instantaneous gratification, patience can seem like an outdated concept. But when we dig deeper, we find that patience is a powerful tool for personal transformation.

Picture this: You’re late, stuck in a traffic jam. Your heart races and your grip tightens on the steering wheel. It’s the kind of impatience we’ve all felt. But this impatience doesn’t clear the road ahead of you, it only adds stress to an already stressful situation. Your car isn’t going any faster, but your peace of mind is speeding away. Esteemed psychologist, Viktor Frankl said it best: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

You can’t make the traffic disappear, but you can control how you react to it. Mandela endured 27 years in prison without losing hope. He didn’t fight the tide. He became stronger by learning to ride it. That’s the essence of patience: letting life unfold on its own terms while you quietly gather strength.

Let’s consider a story about Buddha and his disciples. During a long journey, they pause near a lake to rest. Buddha asked his youngest, a notable impatient disciple to fetch him some water. The disciple raced to the nearest body of water but found the water too muddy to bring back. After a while, Buddha asked the young disciple to try again. Each time, the disciple found the water to be dirty and became increasingly agitated. But on the third request, the disciple found that the water had cleared, the mud settling all on its own. Buddha’s lesson here is clear: time has its way of resolving things.

Alan Watts called this surrendering to the wisdom of insecurity. The knowing that control is an illusion, and forcing outcomes often backfires. When we align with life’s natural rhythm, we move from resistance to ease. Just like muddy water clears when left alone, peace often arrives when we stop trying to fix or force. In attempting to rush the process, we not only frustrate ourselves but also make the situation worse. The disciple’s impatience didn’t make the water clear any faster, it only made him more distressed. Sometimes, the best course of action is simply to wait.

Impatience is often borne from our desire to control things what is not within our control. We crave immediate changes in our circumstances and get agitated when things don’t go our way. We want life to move at the pace we set, bending the world to our will. However, many aspects of life are beyond our control, and recognising that fact is the first step to a more peaceful existence.

When we’re impatient, we experience a kind of internal turmoil. This discomfort isn’t just a burden to us but can also affect those around us. A moment of impatience can lead to an unnecessary argument with a friend, a hasty decision that we later regret, or even instances of rage that put people in harm’s way. Our frequency is lowered which can attract further frustrations and negativity.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, patience is described as: “The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble or suffering without getting angry or upset.” From the traffic jam to a troubled relationship, impatience fuels anxiety. Patience invites us to soften, breathe, and stay present. Patience is about letting go and making peace with how things are.

So, patience is not just booti virtue, it’s a healing force and superpower. In our retreats, remedies, and rituals, we honour slowness and allowing the body, mind and spirit to feel safe in order to let go. After all these years, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is still worthy of a preach: To self-actualise (live your best life), your basic human needs must be met and these include safety, security, shelter, warmth and love.

Being patient invites a landing where we align our pace with that of the world around us, we allow things to unfold in their own time, which usually turns out to be the perfect time.

Patience then is not just about waiting, it is about harmonising with the inherent rhythms of life. This alignment not only minimises stress but also opens doors to possibilities that may not be visible when we’re in a rush. Creativity, clarity, and calm all arise when we stop rushing and start trusting.

So next time you find yourself clenched in urgency, remember: you’re not falling behind, you’re ripening. And patience, dear one, is the nutrient that lets you bloom.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ~ Epicurus