Virtues - Patience

Of course we couldn’t very well choose a theme of “virtues” without mentioning patience. In one of life’s great ironies, the greatest barrier to success is often impatience for it. In order to begin to understand the challenges that our lack of patience can pose for us, let’s first consider one of the mind-body disciplines we discuss a lot here at bodyplusmind, the Alexander technique.

Given that most people come to the Alexander technique because of pain, patience is perhaps more relevant here than anywhere else. This relevance comes precisely because the Alexander technique is not a treatment, not a magic pill. In order to take something away from a lesson which is valuable, it is necessary to engage with what is happening as fully as possible, without focusing on an end result.

Yet not focusing on a result is in stark contrast to the way in which we live our lives, when the result which is hoped for is freedom from pain, the contrast feels even sharper, yet refusing to devote all your attention to your aim is not, as some assume, the same as being aimless.

To illustrate this point, we’d like to relate a story:

Once upon a time, there was a young martial artist who was very skilled. One day he went to visit a renowned master. "How long will it take me to become a great master like you?" asked the student, "10 years" replied the master. "Ten years is a long time" replied the student, "what if I train every day and only stop to eat once a day?" "Fifteen years" replied the master. "Hmmm, What if I only sleep twice a week and train night and day the rest of the time?" "Twenty years!" "I don't understand" said the student, "why is it that every time I say I will work harder you tell me it will take longer to reach it?" "If you keep one eye fixed on your goal" said the master, "you only have one eye left with which to see the way."

Human beings are geared towards achieving their goals. This is a biological imperative. Though it might have been nice for our ancestors to sit in the wild planning the best and most efficient way to catch and eat their prey, the harsh reality was that failure to achieve this goal meant death. The same went for escaping from a predator, how one got away didn’t matter as long as one did.

Today, the stakes are thankfully lower. Yet we still often respond to our new pressures; deadlines at work for instance, in the same “fight or flight” manner. Experiencing this level of stress every day is probably in no small part responsible to the huge amount of stress related conditions that we suffer from today. Similarly the physical stress we (often completely unconsciously) put ourselves under to meet these pressures account for many of the stiff necks and shoulders, back pains, headaches, and myriad other musculo-skeletal disorders that we have come to accept as being simply an inevitable part of a busy life.

Because of these problems, we are in a different situation to our ancestors. Now it does matter how we solve our problems. If we get a piece of work done but are crippled by back pain for a week in the process, how much work will we lose elsewhere? If we stay up all night to meet a deadline, how much will our tiredness cause the quality of our work to suffer?

So if we’re to find a way to free ourselves from these problems, how can we do it? How can patience help? The story of our martial artist shows us that the care which is brought to the process of achieving a goal is what makes reaching the goal possible. Though our young student would have undoubtedly gained more time by eating and sleeping less, the quality of the training that could be done in that weakened state would inevitably have led to an even greater amount of time being wasted. All of the steps related to the student achieving the mastery he was after, even the obvious ones like being fully awake and healthy, must be considered equally important parts of his plan.

Similarly, when we have a deadline to meet, we must have the patience to consider the seemingly unimportant details of achieving it. These details can and do affect our concentration, our happiness, and in the end the quality of our work and so should be considered as important as the work itself. Thinking in this way is, as we’ve mentioned, in stark contrast to the way in which we live our lives and so it must be learned. In essence, patience must be learned. It is a tragic irony that those of us who lack patience require so much of it in order to develop it. But for those who succeed, it is unquestionably time well spent.