21. What is patience?
In my view, patience is the ability to remain normal when I cease to be effective. This retains normalcy and intellectual balance in situations where I know I am no longer effective. In doing so, I save myself and allow my intellectual activities to continue unhindered. Patience is exercised for oneself and not for others.
Patience is the virtue of exercising restraint in trying situations, which enables the individual to proceed towards worthy goals, unaffected by adverse circumstances or repeated provocations. If he allows himself to become upset by opposition, taunts or other kinds of unpleasantness, he will never reach his goals. He will simply become enmeshed in trivialities.
The only way to deal with the irksome side of daily living is to observe patience. Patience will ensure that whenever one has some bitter experience, he would opt for the way of tolerance rather than that of reaction to provocation. It will enable one to absorb shocks and to continue, undeterred, on one’s onward journey.
Patience, as well as being a practical solution to the problems faced in the outside world, is also a means of positive character building. One who fails to exercise patience, gives free rein to negative thoughts and feelings, consequently he develops a negative personality, while one who remains patient is morally bolstered by his own positive thoughts and feelings and as a result develops a positive personality.
Patience is no retreat. Patience only amounts to taking the initiative along the path of wisdom and reason as opposed to the path of emotions. Patience gives one the strength to restrain one’s emotions in delicate situations and use wisdom to find a course of action along result-oriented lines.
The present world is fashioned in such a way that everyone is necessarily faced with unpleasant matters at one time or another. Things, which are unbearable, have somehow to be borne; harrowing events have to be witnessed and all kinds of pain have to be suffered. In such situations, succumbing to impatience leads to unnecessary emotional involvement, which is always counter-productive, while a demonstration of patience has a healing, beneficial effect, allowing one to tread the path of discreet avoidance. Success in the present world is destined only for those who adopt the path of patience in adverse circumstances. The entire spirit of the Quran is in consonance with this concept. The Quran attaches great importance to patience. In fact, patience is set above all other Islamic virtues with the exceptional promise of reward beyond measure:
Truly, those who persevere patiently will be requited without measure. (Quran 39:10)
Patience implies a peaceful response or reaction, whereas impatience implies a violent response.
