“Lord, please give me patience — and give it to me yesterday.” That pretty much sums up my struggle with the most elusive of virtues.

But patience is not only hard to come by, it’s increasingly less valued in our harried, hurried culture which prizes speed, and often mistakes activity or busyness for progress. Sometimes just doing something — anything — for its own sake, is like using a rocking chair.

There’s lots of activity, but it gets you absolutely nowhere.

Still, patience is more than waiting. I was reminded of that in an insightful article by psychologist Sabrina Little. Writing in Psychology Today, she points out that, during the Paris Olympics, Dutch runner Sifan Hassan won three medals over nine days.

In the 5,000-meter run, the 10,000-meter run, and the marathon, she won two bronze and a gold.

“While some runners sprinted off the line to claim front-running positions early, Hassan held back and conserved her energy,” says Little. “She waited to unleash her finishing kick right when she needed to — at the end of each race, timing things perfectly to secure a medal.

“Patience was a major factor in her success.”

And it can be a major factor in ours, too, if we know what patience is and how to use it. Definitions of the quality are a dime a dozen, but they all convey the sense of keeping our focus in difficult situations. Genuine patience........

© Sarnia Observer