Patience... the virtue

Time and again I've heard the expression: patience is a virtue. But is it really? And if so, what kind of patience becomes virtue?

Patience is defined as a state or quality of being patient.
To be patient is to be expectant with calmness, or without discontent; not hasty (so Webster's says.) It can also mean being physically able to suffer or bear; and even mean undergoing pains or trials without fretfulness. An awful lot of suffering and calmness requirements to a virtue it seems.

In many respects, when it comes to my ambitions and passions I'm not a patient person. I want things to happen now, not later, and I want the same energy out of something that I put into it. On the other hand when it comes to others I had found myself to be extremely patient, depending on the situation of course and with an ultimate limit. As example; I have believed in love time and again and have also been equally burnt by it time and again. I have allowed patience of self to a point where it almost destroyed me emotionally. I let it push me to the point of no return so that I could in fact discover what my true limits are, how patient I am willing to be in the future, and what I'm made of. The best part of all that, the testing of personal limits and the limits of one's patience, is that you get to know yourself very well. If you can successfully step through the pain and trials of it all you will step out the other side much stronger, self-assured and with eyes and mind wide open to life. It also teaches you new lessons and values of patience itself. A different type of patience. I no longer allow my patience to be tested as previously I had, because I now know my limits and I know without doubt that I am firm of self. That doesn't mean stubborn and not willing to change if it's for the better, but it does mean I will not compromise my values, or my heart, any longer. My patience is now for me. It is a patience to continue to grow as a person, to expand upon my interests and to allow myself to take the moments to be thankful. Patience now to me means breathing slowly in and out, taking extra moments to listen to what someone has to say, to slow down and look around at what I otherwise might have missed. This is a new definition of patience for me. Not the old anxious one that caused me endless stress and allowed others to walk all over generosity and kindness without saying a word or putting a foot down. It's not selfish to own your patience. It's yours to harness and use so that you don't miss out by running too fast. It now feels like a virtue, where before it felt like a burden.

The current album I'm writing, Back to Freedom, is both about and has been a lesson in patience for me. In order to write this album I had to undergo certain trials, attempt calmness and physically and mentally bear certain pains. It took the greatest opening of my eyes to see life from a perspective as I previously had not, in order to write words that were and are honest, raw, and meaningful. Sure I have written all types of songs in the past and they were honest to a point, but they were not truly real for me. The fact remains that I never wrote about what is, but instead I had always written about what I hoped could be. A big difference. Back to Freedom is about what I have learned. It is about what I feel, experience and continue to live by. It is an album to me of the virtue of patience and of the discovery of patience-of-self. The process is showing me that through this new form of patience, I can now fully learn about life, love, and everything I may have missed before.

Cheers.