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Patience
Patience is a trait that is often called for in our daily life. Maintaining one’s composure can make the difference between a flourishing or tension-filled marriage, one’s ability to parent effectively, and one's effectiveness with getting along with difficult personalities in the workplace.
Our reactions to different occurrences in life are largely based upon the way we frame a particular stimulus. That frame is grounded in our beliefs about life and about what happens in life. Let’s explore a framework that lays the groundwork for more patience in the face of hassles.
Divine Providence
Fundamental to Jewish faith is the concept that not only did G-d create the world, but He continues to direct its affairs.
The Bal Shem Tov taught this concept based on the verse in Psalms
“G-d established the steps of man.” Meaning, g-d imparts the desire to a person to travel to a specific place….. Therefore, when we come to a particular place, we must take this to heart and ask ourselves, “Why am I here? For what purpose did G-d bring me here? It is certainly not for naught”
The annoying part of missing a flight or being stuck in traffic is that we need to be elsewhere. We have an agenda and expectations.
But the Baal Shem Tov argues, we don’t need to be elsewhere. The One Who put us here in the first place, is the One Who is directing us.
Wherever we are, whether it’s a place we would like to be on not, we are there for a purpose: to do an act of kindness or to learn something new. Our focus should shift to what that purpose might be.
The Joy of Purpose
When it comes time to finding purpose in a given hassle, there is no book to tell you what the purpose is. We are in charge to figure it out.
This way of life is not intuitive. It’s a learned awareness, that something larger than ourselves defines our path in life. But with a purposeful perspective, we are able to develop patience. With a purposeful mindset, we can calmly handle frustrations and annoyances of life, knowing that these are purposeful opportunities, enabling us to accomplish something important for which we were created.
And this is not an all or nothing proposition. There are not simply to kinds of people: Mission oriented or self-oriented. Most of us lie somewhere in between these two extremes. The more we are able to align ourselves with the notion that we are here to serves something higher, the more we will be able to find purpose in things like waiting on a long line or being stuck in traffic.