When you’re a teenager your parents, peers and teachers give you advice, instruction, and skills to help you steer yourself safely through the rapids of the stream called life. Yet you’re hardly ever given one of the most powerful life hacks – be present and patient.
In fairness to them, they were not taught (so they’re not going to teach you) how to tap into your inner being, your soul, and express more of its qualities such as joy, peace, patience, and presence. Instead, they will pass on the baton and condition you to use your mind.
All of us – at least until we awaken and become aware – live our lives completely controlled by our mind. It creates our thoughts and emotions. It focuses our attention on the past or the future. It hurries us along a continuum of goals, dreams, and desires it deems to be important and necessary for our happiness, success, health, and wealth.
Yet, when we are driven by our mind, we repeatedly struggle, stress and strain to attain what we seek and desire. Often, we arrive at our sought-after destination, drained and depleted. This strenuous cycle repeats itself all too often over our entire life. When you’ve burnt out more than once and had to withdraw your attention and energy from your worldly activities, so you could resurrect yourself, you know what I’m talking about!
Only when we begin to realise that who we really are is not the ego, nor the mind, but a soul housed in a physical body having a human experience, only then do we begin to understand that to be present and patient – two aspects innate to our soul – are very powerful, beneficial, and necessary to tap into as we navigate through this life. (Assuming, of course, you would like to achieve your goals with more ease, feel more at peace within, and experience emotional equilibrium and mental calm.)
So, just for a week, (and even longer after you’ve tried this) give yourself a simple task. Remind yourself to be present and patient in everything you do and with everyone.
Make ‘be present and patient’ your mantra. Infuse it into your tasks at work, your errands, your interactions with your work colleagues and your emotional engagement with your partner, family, and friends.
At the end of each day, review your day and notice the subtle changes you experience.
What happens to the nature of the thoughts you have?
What emotions do you experience throughout the day?
How does your body feel?
At the end of the week, review the entire week.
Notice how you begin to cultivate more calm within.
Notice how crisply your mind can focus.
Notice how much more energetic, engaged, and effective you are.
Notice how things begin to flow and happen more easily.
All this, without pressure, pushing and impatience.
You’ll then understand for what reasons you want to be present and patient more often in your life, aside from the fact it’s one of the most powerful productivity and life hacks you can use!
To give you just one example of how effective this hack is: More business deals are lost, and more disputes materialize simply because people lack the ability (the patience) to ride-out time until a more opportune moment.
The mind wants to rush someone into a making a decision or agreeing to a course of action.
The mind wants to keep moving things along toward the outcome you want.
But that subtle energy of “pushing forward” is picked up by the other party and they are likely to instinctively push back or cut-loose altogether.
Yet, when you become present and slow down (or stop and remain quiet!) your emotions calm down, insights emerge, and your inner wisdom will invariably direct you into saying and doing the right things at the right time.
Very few people have the ability (the patience) to DO NOTHING when their own mind is screaming at them to do something.
Yet, if you can be one of those few people that can strategically (and intuitively) ride-out time until a more opportune moment in a personal dynamic – you will find that everything begins to get resolved a lot more smoothly with a lot less stress and strain.
By the way, I’ve read that humans are the only species on Earth that speeds up when they are lost.
Anyway, the point is this:
Time (the clicking down of a clock) is not your enemy.
In fact, forget clock time.
Simply be present and patient in the midst of each situation (by stopping!) and you will “be given” the right course of action to take (through intuitive knowing) at the right moment.
Try it. It may seem weird, but it works!
