Airport Reflections on Patience

Ten years ago, I had a series of speaking and teaching engagements in Salt Lake City, Utah, and my return flight was delayed. In the picture above, you can see the beautiful mountains behind me, and the airplanes neatly lined up in a row (none of them mine or ready to go). In the midst of the beautiful view outside, I took the opportunity to reflect on patience.

Patience is a gift that some people have naturally, and others have to really work out at the gym of life to develop. Yes, patience really can be comparable to a superpower at times, because there are many things in life that actually only happen when you have the patience to allow them to happen – when you go with it (the delays, the traffic jams, the late buses), and make the most out of the experience.

Oftentimes we push too hard and too fast, forcing things to happen. We break them in the process and ruin our opportunities to let things come to us as they were meant to. We make our journey, and sometimes the journey of others around us, even harder than it needs to be.

How would you measure your capability of tapping into and exercising patience? Is it one of your greatest strengths, or are you still toning it in the gym of life?