The Power of Patience: How This Old-Fashioned Virtue Can Improve Your Life (Self-Care Gift for Men and Women)
By M.J. Ryan
4/5
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About this ebook
“This book is a true gift to the world. It's insightful and full of calm, helpful wisdom.” —Richard Carlson, author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
Bestselling author M.J. Ryan details just what living with patience can bring to our lives and how it can change us for the better.
Take a deeper look at an old-fashioned quality. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Patience is a virtue,” and doubtless responded with a sigh, as usually it’s spoken with a tone of reproach. But this virtue carries with it a wealth of wisdom that can actually help us find happiness in our day-to-day life.
Slow the rush. Things move at a quick pace in our society, in both our work lives and social lives. Not only are we forced to keep up, but we have been conditioned to expect instant gratification. Because of this, we find ourselves getting flustered by the smallest setbacks or hold ups―whether it’s a slow server at a restaurant or rush-hour traffic. Ryan shares how patience is the very antidote to the stress of our fast-paced lifestyle.
Reclaim your priorities. By reining in our aggravation when things don’t happen instantaneously, we give ourselves time to breathe and think more clearly. We make better use of our days and allow ourselves to make decisions based on how they align with our priorities, instead of focusing on how fast we can get tasks done. With M.J. Ryan’s help, we can learn to foster a patient outlook and find joy and fulfillment in the present moment.
M.J. Ryan’s book is a fulfilling and beneficial self-care gift for women and men that provides:
- Straightforward, believable instructions for developing a habit of patience
- A source of stress-relief and guide to happier living
- Ways to find peaceful moments amidst the hustle and bustle that each day brings
Readers of Present Over Perfect, When Less Becomes More, The Joy of Missing Out, or Stillness is Key will love M.J. Ryan’s The Power of Patience.
M.J. Ryan
Known internationally as an expert on change, M.J. Ryan works as an executive coach to senior executives and entrepreneurs around the world to accelerate business success and personal fulfillment. She combines a practical approach gained as the CEO of a book publishing company with methodologies from neuroscience, positive psychology and asset-focused learning to help clients and readers more easily meet their goals. Her clients include Royal Dutch Shell, Microsoft, Time, the U.S. military, and Aon Hewitt. She's a partner with the Levo League career network and the lead venture coach at SheEO, an organization offering a new funding and support model for female entrepreneurs. She's the founder of Conari Press, creator of the New York Times bestselling Random Acts of Kindness series, and author of many books, including, Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals.
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Reviews for The Power of Patience
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I decided to read this book after a very tough phase in my life, it helped to dig deep inside myself and get better understanding of who I am. Loved also how it’s divided to short stories so you won’t get board and found practical exercises so helpful.
Thanks M.J.
Book preview
The Power of Patience - M.J. Ryan
Copyright © 2003, 2013, 2021 by M.J. Ryan.
Published by Conari Press, a division of Mango Media Inc. Group, division of Mango Media Inc.
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The Power of Patience: How This Old-Fashioned Virtue Can Improve Your Life
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
upon request
ISBN: (print) ISBN: 978-1-64250-457-6 (ebook) 978-1-64250-458-3
BISAC: SEL035000, SELF-HELP / Self-Management / Time Management
Printed in the United States of America
The key to everything is patience.
You get the chicken by hatching
the egg, not by smashing it.
Arnold H. Glasgow
contents
1
HOW THIS OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUE
CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFE
Stick-to-It-Ness: The Power of Persistence
No Reason to Stress: The Power of Serenity
That’s OK: The Power of Acceptance
2
PATIENCE’S GIFTS
Patience Creates Excellence
Patience Brings Us into Harmony with the
Cycles of Nature
Patience Helps Us Make Better Decisions
Patience Connects Us to Hope
Patience Helps Us Live Longer and More
Stress-Free
Patience Helps Us Waste Less Time,
Energy, and Money
Patience Gets Us More of What We Want
Patience Guards the Door to Anger
Patience Gives Us Greater Tolerance
and Empathy
Patience Helps Us Have Happier Love
Relationships
Patience Makes Us Better Parents
Patience Teaches the Power of Receptivity
Patience Is the Heart of Civility
Patience Grows Our Souls
3
THE ATTITUDES OF PATIENCE
I’m Still Learning
Patience Is a Decision
This Too Shall Pass
The Screws Are Just as Important as the Wings
Waiting Is Part of Being Alive
It’s Better to Work At It Than to Buy Your
Way Out of It
Where Are You Hurrying To?
Boredom Is All in Our Heads
Remember Rule Number Six
Tuning Out Is as Important as Tuning In
What Does This Matter
in the Larger Scheme of Things?
People Are Only Human
Some Things Are Worth Waiting For
It Will Work Out
It Takes as Long as It Takes
There’s More Than One Right Way
Welcome, Teachers of Patience
Enough Is Enough
Be Here Now
4
THE PRACTICES OF PATIENCE
Tell Yourself the Truth About
Where You Are Right Now
Tune In to Yourself in the Morning
When Am I Patient?
Let Me Count the Ways
Know Your Impatience Triggers
Learn Your Early-Warning Signs
Take a Breather
Climb Down to the Base of the Tree
Road Sage, Not Road Rage
Issue a Storm Warning to Children
Tap Into Your Inner Wisdom
Keep Your Blood Sugar Level Up
Reframe the Situation
Find Something Else to Do
Practice with Aging Parents and Other Elders
Respond from Your Heart
Tell Yourself You Have All the Time You Need
Do a Risk Analysis
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
Underwhelm Yourself
Ask Yourself: Is This Thing Still Flying?
5
TWENTY SIMPLE PATIENCE
BOOSTERS
6
ABOVE ALL, BE MERCIFUL
WITH YOURSELF
My Thanks
Bibliography
About the Author
1
how this old-fashioned virtue
can improve your life
®
Dear God,
I pray for patience.
And I want it RIGHT NOW!
Oren Arnold
Consider this:
•Some McDonald’s are promising lunch in
ninety seconds or it’s free.
•The average doctor visit now lasts eight
minutes.
•An over-the-counter drug is marketed for women who don’t have time for a yeast infection.
•Politicians currently take a mere 8.2 seconds to answer a question, regardless of the complexity of the topic.
•A popular all-you-can-eat buffet in Tokyo charges by the minute—the faster you eat, the cheaper it is.
•The head of Hitachi’s portable computer division motivates his workers with the slogan: Speed is God, and time is the devil.
•Developers of high rises have discovered an upward limit to the number of floors—the amount of time people are willing to wait for elevators. Fifteen seconds is what feels best; if it stretches to forty, we freak out.
All of us these days, it seems, spend our lives rushing around. We’re in constant motion, and we expect everything and everyone around us to go faster as well. As technology watcher David Shenk notes, between our smartphones and our speed dials, email and FedEx, quickness has disappeared from our culture. We now only experience degrees of slowness.
Writer James Gleick says it more bluntly—we’re all suffering from hurry sickness,
a term first coined by Meyer Friedman, the identifier of the Type A personality.
I know I have it. I can’t stand how slowly my computer boots up. I actually timed it recently; it took one minute and I was fidgeting the whole time. I’m the person pushing the elevator button more than once to make it come faster. I hit the pound key to bypass the message on other people’s voice mail. And I use the one-minute button on the microwave because it’s quicker than punching in the time myself.
This is how bad I’ve got it. Yesterday, I went to my local copy shop. I made my copies and was standing in line, waiting to pay. The young man behind the counter was struggling to help a very old lady figure out how to send a package to her grandchild. There’s one other person in line in front of me. My inner monologue goes like this: Lines, I hate lines. Why can’t they get enough help in here? (Fume.) Why can’t they at least post how much they charge for copies so I could pay without waiting? (A minute passes. More fuming.) I don’t have time for this. I’ve got more important things to do. I can’t just stand here. I have to get home and write this book on patience.
I can’t take it anymore. I blurt out from my place in line, How much for a copy?
Ten cents,
replies the flustered young man. Flinging down a dollar for my forty-cent purchase, I storm out of the store, the irony of the situation not occurring to me until I am driving away.
Another word for hurry sickness is impatience, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one suffering from it. Road rage, violence of all sorts, blowups at the office, divorce, yelling at our kids . . . all of these and many other of the world’s ills can be traced at least in part to a lack of patience.
A while ago the state of California ran public service announcements to slow for the cone zone.
It was a campaign to get drivers to slow from sixty-five to fifty-five miles per hour in construction areas because so many workers have been killed. The ads informed listeners that the time difference between going fifty-five and sixty-five in a one-mile construction area is ten seconds. People are getting killed because we’re not willing to get somewhere ten-seconds-a-mile later!
Indeed it appears that the faster things go, the less patience we are able to muster. This is a problem because life inevitably has a certain degree of delay in the form of lines, traffic jams, and automated message systems. More important, our lack of patience creates difficulties because the more complex of life’s challenges—illness, disability, relationship conflicts, job crises, parenting issues, to name a few—require that we practice patience in order not merely to cope, but to grow in love and wisdom.
Without patience, we can’t truly learn from the lessons life throws at us; we’re unable to mature. We remain at the stage of irritable babies, unable to delay gratification more than momentarily, unable to work toward what we truly want in any dedicated way. If we want to live wider and deeper lives, not just faster ones, we have to practice patience—patience with ourselves, with other people, and with the big and small circumstances of life itself.
I know we’re longing to put more patience in our lives because I’ve published more than two hundred books and written twenty-two. Never before had people said to me so emphatically, I need that!
when I told them what I was working on. But with this book, every person who heard of it said something to that effect. The world is going faster and faster and we are all trying to keep up. Never before has patience been more needed—and never has it been in such short supply.
But we can change that. With the right attitudes and a bit of practice, we can learn to harness the power of patience in our lives. If I, a speeded-up, Type A, overachieving middle-aged woman can do it, so can you. It’s a combination of motivation (wanting to), awareness (paying attention to our inner landscape), and cultivation (practicing).
We can do it because patience is a human quality that can be strengthened. We have what we need. We’re patient already—how else did we get through school, learn to love, find a job? We’re just not always aware of what helps us be patient, what triggers our impatience, or what to do when our patience wears thin.
The most important thing to know is that patience is something you do, not something you have or don’t have. It’s like a muscle. We all have muscles, but some people are stronger than others because they work out.
The same is true with patience. Some of us may be better at it right now, but each of us can develop more with practice. That’s what this book is all about.
The Power of Patience looks at the importance of patience—what it can do for us, why it’s so crucial now, and how to become more patient. It does this from a broad spiritual and inspirational point of view, using my own stories as well as ideas from centuries of wisdom on the topic from around the world. It springs from my quest to live a happy and meaningful life, and my passion to help others do the same.
This has been a lifelong search for me, but it began to take shape about twenty years ago, when I, as the executive editor of Conari Press, put together a little book with some friends called Random Acts of Kindness. It seemed like a good idea at the time—let’s do nice little things for strangers—but when I began to see and hear about the effects it was having, I began to sense I had stumbled onto something very important. Suddenly I was inundated with letters from people telling me of the joy they had experienced as either a doer or a receiver of these acts. The letter I will never forget was from a high school student who said he was going to kill himself, until he read our book and decided that maybe life was worth living.
I became fascinated with the power of kindness to create happiness, and went on to help write a series of books on the topic. And I began to try to become more kind, both to strangers and those I am close to. And lo and behold, just like the boy who didn’t kill himself, I got happier.
Then I began to wonder, If kindness can have such a positive effect, what other qualities right under our noses could have similar results? I turned my attention