It Pays To Be Patient

Patience is needed for many facets of life. Patience is required to maintain relationships with family, friends, or your partner. When working under pressure or any job there is a certain level of patience that is needed to keep a level head and be efficient. I like to hunt and fish so I need a lot of patience to help me stay motivated, and it’s a similar mentality when I’m doing schoolwork.

I have a neighbor with autism that I sometimes watch if my his parents are away. We are around the same age, but he often has a hard time voicing his thoughts clearly. This requires me to be patient and really listen to what he has to say so that I can understand him and help him the best I can. So patience helps communticate better build a relationship with him.

Other specific times when I use patience is when I am hunting. I have to stay patient all while trying to be overly conscious of my movement, noise, and surroundings. One particular time I had to be patient was when I shot a mature buck, since the older a deer gets the more it gets conscious of its surroundings, so naturally they are more skittish. I was facing an open field with a lot of brush covering it. I had my back turned to the tree line to the forest that was behind me and I heard light footsteps behind me. I slowly turned my head and saw the legs of a deer walking cautiously. It disappeared behind some trees, but I could still hear the footsteps, and then the suddenly stopped. The deer stayed hidden for two minutes, cautiously surveying they area with his eyes, nose and ears. I slowly swayed my rifle to my right and fixed my scope to where I thought the deer would walk out, but then there was a loud crash of leaves being crunched, and I saw the white flash of his tail as he leaped from the forest. I fired, missed, and quickly reloaded. I slowed my breathing, followed him in the scope, and as he was in mid-air I fired again and watched him fall… and not get back up. As exciting as this was, I reminded myself that my success was almost entirely contingent on my patience.

Patience is something that you can build on, to help people mature and learn. It’s a good quality to carry, and it shows that you care, are understanding, and have a level head. During stressful situations someone has to stay calm and just be patient, because often all that is needed is the discipline to be patient, and most people eventually learn that patience can useful tool in order to understand others as well as generally being productive.

“Forest” by Kohei314 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

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