000005 — Patience requires discipline, a whole lot of it

I’ve never thought about patience and discipline in the same category before, but the more I sit with it, the more I see how they’re connected. You can’t be patient without discipline, and you can’t be disciplined without patience.

I lived most of my life thinking patience was just waiting. When you are a kid, your teacher says, “Be patient. Wait your turn.” As I grow and wrestle more honestly with my own mind, I’m realizing real patience is not just waiting. It is being present in the waiting. Why don’t they teach you that in school? Ha.

Sitting in discomfort without needing to immediately resolve it. Trusting the process without forcing an outcome.

When I look back at the moments in my life where the most growth happened, they all had something in common: I stayed with the work. I didn’t rush past it. I didn’t try to shortcut it. I focused on the inputs, not the urgency to be done.

Holding steady when the world is moving fast.

This is the part that’s tricky. It’s one thing to hold patience when it’s just you. But when the world around you is moving fast when expectations are high, when everyone wants results now, it’s easy to feel like patience is slowing you down, or you're doing something wrong.

That’s been the challenge for me lately. I’ve finally built patience, but now there’s more demand than ever. It’s an interesting paradox.

Patience requires trust. Trust in the process and trust in my own ability to navigate it are both necessary. It’s resisting the urge to control every variable. It’s knowing when to move and when to hold steady.

Finding rhythm.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about patience like a rhythm rather than a rule. Some seasons require stillness. Some require speed. The key is knowing which moment you’re in and trusting yourself enough to follow it.

That is the work right now; learning the rhythm, knowing when to move, and not letting external urgency take over the room inside me.