What’s the Most Important Trait We Need During These Times?
As I thought about this question, the first traits that came to my mind were perseverance, optimism, or determination. But as I considered the situation more deeply, I decided that, based on what I’ve seen and experienced, there is another trait we all need to build and use during these extremely challenging times; and that is PATIENCE.
Everywhere I turn, I see examples where a little more patience would make a big difference.
Patience with other people’s reactions to the extreme stress, whether it surfaces in the form of catastrophic thinking, rudeness, sadness, blame, etc. We are all different and process what’s happening in different ways.
Patience with the massive inconvenience of social distancing. This is impacting all of us so we have to find peace and acceptance until things get better.
Patience with other people in our household. Suddenly many of us are spending TONS of time together in close quarters. This can definitely cause us to get on each other’s nerves and breed impatience.
Patience with ourselves. It’s normal to go through a rollercoaster of emotions as we try to find our way through this mess. Some days may be much harder than others.
Here are a few things that are helping me.
- Pausing before I respond.
- Taking several deep breaths.
- Just staying quiet instead of voicing what comes to my mind.
- Reminding myself that this is hard on all of us, some more than others.
- Trying to keep my “positivity battery” charged so I have more internal resources available.
- Focusing on the present moment vs. worrying about the future.
See if you can find opportunities to practice and use your patience this week. You may also notice that it’s easier for other people to be patient if we’re patient with them first.
