On Patience Being Kindness

I am an impatient person. With myself, with my art, even with most others (with one exception).

I learned how to be impatient from having people be impatient with me. Tone of voice is so much of communication. Teachers, parents, other family members, classmates, colleagues, whomever: using tones of exasperation or annoyance because things weren’t getting done the way they envisioned them in the moment that they wanted it done…And being a HSP, that impatience cut me to the quick. I learned how to treat myself with the same level of disdain for several decades.

As I pursue this creative life, I have learned how destructive impatience truly is. Impatience implies “not good enough,” “not fast enough,” “not competitive enough,” “not successful enough.” It’s too easy to be gruff with oneself, tear oneself down with tones of impatience, annoyance, harshness.

But then one day, someone I was not expecting to be patient with me was indeed very kind and waited for me to explain something in my own time. And it was one of the most valuable experiences I had had (probably ever). I said, “Thank you for being so patient with me.” And the response was, “You’re worth it.”

And in that moment I saw how kind patience truly is. Just. So. Kind. I realized I needed to do that for myself, too. I said to myself, “I am worth it: I am worth patience and kindness. My art is worth it. My art deserves it.”

To be patient with others is to be kind to others. To be patient with ourselves is to be kind to ourselves. To be patient with our art is to love our art.