Letter #51 - Patience is Power

To everyone, at any stage in life,

I’ve been thinking about my life a lot recently, about how I’ve gotten to where I am and the various detours that the universe threw my way. I think I’m at my most self-aware but confident in that self, than I’ve been since I was a teenager I think. A big part of that has been patience and practicing it daily. 

Patience is this virtue, up on a pedestal, and I think that that can make it so inaccessible when people need it most. When someone says they aren’t a patient person, generally I’ve found that that means they haven’t learnt how to be. Patience is on par with self-control. And in civilised society, the majority of people have self-control. For example, we don’t go running into stores and stealing everything we want; instead we have the patience and control to get to a point where we can fund our purchases. We don’t walk out of meetings that aren’t going our way or lash out when we dislike something. So we have indeed got control and one step up from self-control is patience. Or at least that’s how I see it.

It makes the act and even the art of patience slightly more understandable. It isn’t a virtue that only the best of people can obtain. It is like any other ability. We practice until we’ve gotten better at it. It’s like a muscle that needs to be worked.

For me, this was a daily practice. I love my lists and so I would list the things that would make my life amazing if I had them/could achieve them. Then I would state what I had done that day to work towards that aim. If I hadn’t done anything, then I knew where I was going wrong and it was usually then that my patience would wain. But seeing it on paper would help.

 

If I hadn’t worked on that goal, how could I expect it to magically manifest?? Whenever I was working towards something, I felt patient because I knew I was putting something in and as a result, eventually I would get something out of it too. Soon the practice of patience became almost second nature and I could judge how I was feeling based on how patient and grateful I was on any given day. 

Seeing the way my life is in this present moment, has made me really appreciate patience. There are things I’ve been working on or hoping for, for close to a decade and only now can I see the results coming to life. Even now, they aren’t the finished results and I’ve got a long way to go with the things I’m trying to perfect or achieve. But I keep marvelling at time and how it passes when you have the patience to just let it happen.

If it wasn’t for those patient moments that I cultivated and learnt to master, I would have given up on some things a long long time ago. But doing so, wouldn’t have taken me to a better place, or rather not a place that I would have wanted to be in.

So I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who told me to be patient (basically my mum...constantly). Life ebbs and flows and if you’re in a moment where it’s not really flowing your way, keep going and be patient that your hard work will pay off.

It really helps when we think of how long our lives could be. Thinking of that always grounded me. There’s so many more years ahead, hopefully, so if you’re not there yet, doesn’t mean you never will be.

But none of that means that I don’t have my moments! I have many many moments where I just cannot be in a positive and patient place. I want to whine and have a bit of a rant. But all of that is fine! You don’t need to be saintly to practice patience. All it does is give you a bit more power in your life. All it means is that you don’t spend every moment looking to a non-existent future, while forgetting the present in which you need to work to make it a reality.

I just work on not letting the bad moments consume my day or my life, like I used to. I need to give an honorary mention to Gary Vaynerchuk, who preaches so much positivity that you can’t help but take it on board! And another mention to the friend who introduced me to my first Gary Vee video that started this whole thing. You started an upward spiral that just makes me more self-aware.

Anyway, clearly I missed blogging because this post got away from me entirely! Enjoy this nearly 1000 word post and I hope you can find a way to cultivate a bit of patience into your life. Those bad little things, once they stop seeming like the end of the world, everything opens up, the good things become great and the bad things don’t seem as world-crushing.

Do you have any practices that work for you? Things that make the day better when it’s awful, or ways to just change your perspective?

Until next time, be inspired...

Z 

Letter #11 - Faith

Dear readers, 

I never speak much about faith or religion to anyone unless they specifically ask me. I find it's a personal topic and I'll give my opinion only if asked and not a moment before. Even when I am asked, I try to keep away from the technicalities and areas where I can be wrong, simply because of how delicate a topic it can be for some people.

If anyone is interested, I am Muslim. I practice to the best of my abilities and do what I can and generally try to be a good person. I think at the basis of most, if not all, religion or schools of thought, is how to be a good, decent human being. And sometimes I feel that that ethos gets forgotten in and amongst the differences and the specificity of religion.

I've always believed and been brought up to believe, that your faith is personal; it's exclusive to you and yes, there are a lot of others who can follow your faith and they may be doing many things right or wrong but that that should never be my concern. The moment you start judging is the moment that you are wrong. I do believe that there are some things that people do that are wrong and yet others may not see it that way, in the same way that I must be doing things that are wrong in their eyes. That's fine. We're all different and we're all free to make mistakes and to learn.

I'm quite surprised at myself for even writing this. I've always felt nervous about declaring my religion, not because I'm not proud - I really really am proud of my religion and my beliefs - but because there are always naysayers. Those of differing religions and even those who share my beliefs yet feel that I don't follow it in the way that they would like me to. It's small-mindedness that I get anxious about. I feel confident enough about that post simply because I know that there won't be too many people reading this and those that do are mainly my friends.

I think that the reason that I'm writing this now is because it is Ramadan right now, a holy month for Muslims, where we fast and pray and I always feel more connected spiritually that I do at any other time of the year. I'm fasting as I type this, and I actually like it. Here in the UK, our fasts are about 19 hours long since we fast from sunrise to sunset, and the summer months are obviously longer but all this time, is time that I seem to spend thinking.

I love my faith, but more so than that, I love that I have the capability to have faith and believe in more than just this earth and its surrounding. I like the comfort that I get from it, from praying to simply believing that there is an afterlife for us once we leave this earth. I know that not everyone will agree and I don't really need them to. 

That's why I think faith should be personal; I don't need anyone else to agree with me on it, it's my faith and it's my spirit that I'm feeding by practising. I think it's a soulful practice and it makes so many people feel safe and hopeful when the world does its absolute best to leave us feeling empty inside. The world is harsh and unforgiving but my faith in something more allows me to forgive myself and others and I think that is what it is most important for.

It gives us something to value while uniting us to help each other navigate this mess called life. Anyway, that's my rambling of the week done. Feel free to let me know about your faith and the things that make you feel safe.

Until next time, be inspired...

Love, Z