#02 Who stretches your patience to the limit?

The Cambridge dictionary defines patience as “the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed.”

In our fast-paced life, people are not willing to wait anymore. Because they don´t have to. When our grandmothers spent hours shopping, prepping, and cooking a meal, our next one is only a click and 17 minutes away from being delivered straight to our front door. When web designers had to optimise loading time to 1-2 seconds, they will soon have to aim for under 0.5 seconds. Faster, better, more accessible. Innovation, efficiency, and convenience are the big winner.

They all killed patience.

And suddenly, you find yourself sitting in the car and losing your shit because why on earth did you deserve to have the student driver in front of you. And in utter disbelief, you nervously check the watch for the fourth time while the senior is counting his coins at the checkout. And you complain about the new co-worker to your boss because she still doesn't get it, even though you explained everything twice.

We are outraged and bitter because we can not wait. We get angry and go crazy because we are unwilling to pause for others. We are a generation of impatience.

And we should start changing this now.

Because if a generation cannot even wait patiently for a few minutes or even a few seconds, how will this generation ever acquire skills that require practice for days, months, or years?

I spent more than 12 months studying, observing, training, and practicing Pilates during my teacher training. And I remember precisely the words of my teacher when we received our certificate. She strongly advised us to remember that even after devoting more than 600 hours of our time and energy to becoming a Pilates teacher, this is just the beginning. The certificate represents nothing more than a tool kit we have obtained. This tool kit enables us to explore and collect experiences. Every single class and every single client is an opportunity to learn and expand your tool kit.

Becoming a classically trained Pilates teacher is hard, time-consuming, and expensive. Only some people who start this journey reach the finish line. Most schools I know have only a hand full of graduates per year. In a profit-driven world, this is a pretty bad business model.

And so it comes that, like in so many other fields, the market invented a faster, easier, and more convenient alternative. Today you can decide to be a Pilates teacher on a Thursday and hold your “certificate” in your hands the following Monday. Quick and easy.

Greed kills skill development.

Don´t fall into the trap of believing there are shortcuts in life. There are no. If you want to become good at something, you have to invest time and actual effort. And if you want to be excellent at something, you might have to dedicate your life to it.

Don´t fall for your comfort. Life is uncomfortable sometimes. There is nothing you can do about it. There is no such thing as an easy job, an easy relationship, or an easy life. Every day we are confronted with challenges of all sorts of things. Instead of complaining, remember that your resistance will not change the situation at all. It will only make it worse.

Next time when you are about to lose it, pause for a moment and ask who it is, that stretches your patience to the limit.

The answer is you.

It is your inability to wait.

It is your impotence to endure discomfort.

It is your powerlessness you can’t accept.

It is your arrogance that makes you think you are more important than others.

Patience is free of pride and insecurity.

Patience comes with knowledge.

Patience is to understand.

It begins with you.