I was once during my whole lifetime told that I was insecure. At the time, I just laughed it off -- you can label me poor, lazy, short temper, proud, simple or naive, whatever you like, but insecurity is the one thing that has nothing to do with me. However, as I later on read more books and reflections on self improvement, I figured that I actually did lack security! These materials taught me that if one feels really secure, s/he would be patient to everyone and everything s/he encounters.
We urge our partners or spouses to achieve more, push our children to study harder, force ourselves to get better, ask our close friends to be perfecter. We endlessly pursue "faster, higher, stronger". Why? Because we don't feel secure with the currently existing status. When I first learned this interpretation, I immediately recalled how frustrated I got when I couldn't make my son fully understand a concept, both at him and at myself. Then I remembered the feeling of despair when I wasn't able to pronounce a word or to read a sentence correctly after many tries, and the worry I had when telling a friend a low level mistake she made while she didn't listen.
Then I did quite a lot of thinking. (Oh, God must be laughing badly again right now!) In the above cases, the actions I took were normal and reasonable, but the emotion was poisonous to all parties invlolved and it did no good to the situation. If we care and know how to care, love and know how to love, we'd know how patience should be applied.
It takes time for things to happen, to change and to improve. Everyone has their own rythm and follows his/her own course. Life is not one plus one. My son has been doing better and better since I stopped looking over him. He is actually doing too good now that he's started to be dissatisfied with me over academic topics though he covers that pretty well. I didn't make much meaningful progress over any 1-2 year period while I was working on my English. But looking back 5 years later, no one can deny that the improvement is nontrival. As for my friends, all of them are doing fine, and getting better and happier. The sky won't fall if we don't push people or things so badly.
Being patient is a skill that not everyone is born with. But for ourselves, our loved ones, and maybe even the ones we don't like that much, it is worth it to keep it in mind, and remind ourselves of it at times.
This is one of the most valuable things I learned in my web-surfing years. Well, don't look at me, I am still impatient and short-tempered. Knowing something doesn't guarantee being able to practice it perfectly. It takes time. Please be patient. I promise I will get there, eventually.
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