Impatience
"Haste is waste"
Introduction
Defining Impatience
When you feel a need to rush through a task, you are experiencing a state of mind called impatience.
Time is infinite; it cannot run out. But impatience can compel one to see time as a scarce resource. Sometimes, impatience can even make one imagine that something bad is going to happen if a problem is not dealt with quickly.
Impatience thus can be a painful and uncomfortable state of mind that can cause one to worry and panic. It can also drive one to be angry at others when they are "stealing" or "wasting" one's time.
In this article, we will explore the deeper cause of impatience and the ways to release it so that one can enjoy life at their own pace rather.
Impatience In Depth
The Cause Of Impatience
When we only look outwards for the cause of Impatience, the cause can appear to be the person or situation that is making us waste our precious Infinite Time.
But as we turn our attention inwards to find the deeper cause, we will discover that it is caused by us rejecting the Present Moment.
See Catalyst—Being Present if one wishes to learn more about the Present Moment.
Thus when impatience is viewed from a deeper perspective, impatience is a state of rejecting the Present Moment. When we are impatient, it is because we are in a state of mind where we cannot accept the Present Moment / Present Self / Present Situation as is. And whenever we cannot accept something, the suffering states of mind will be experienced.
Thus, to know the true cause for one's impatience, one can look within to see what one is rejecting, one can observe the negative reactions and thoughts that arise within. The more one observes the world within, the more one will know about the root cause of their impatience.
Asking the following questions can help one to know more about the deeper causes of their impatience:
"Why can't we accept the Present Moment as is?"
"Why can't we accept that we will be late to the meeting?"
"Why can't we accept the fact that something will require a long time to do?"
"Why can't I accept that person for being slow?"
On the journey of questioning, one will discover many kinds of answers. Perhaps one will discover that one is rejecting a situation because one believes that it should be a certain way, i.e. believing that the food service we are receiving shouldn't be so slow, that the queue shouldn't be so long, that the day should go smoother, and so forth.
Or perhaps, one will discover that the deeper cause of their impatience comes from the desire to do something more exciting than what they are currently doing, i.e. one may be rushing through their work so they can go back to their PS5 or TV shows.
The more asks questions to explore the deeper cause of their impatience, the more clues they will find, which will help them to know exactly what is causing it, and what one needs to work on to release it.
Everyone will be different, thus, the only way for one to find the true solution is for one to embark on a personal journey into themselves.
Importance
Importance Of Addressing Impatience
Intention
To address Impatience, we have to first develop the motivation and intention to address it.
So, let us look at the ways Impatience can ruin our life!
When we are impatient, it can push us to rush through things.
The following quote is taken from a game I used to play: "Haste Creates Waste". This saying speaks the truth because when you rush through things in life, you'll end up making more mistakes and consequently spend more time to fix them.
When we rush through things in life, the quality of our work will also be affected.
The state of Impatience can also inflame one with hatred towards the situations and people that have triggered it to surface within. For instance, the state of impatience can drive one to imagine bad things about the person that has made us wait, i.e., about how selfish they are, about how they don't care about our feelings, about how they are lying and how they are doing something else whilst we are suffering in anticipation for their arrival, and so forth.
Thus, impatience can bring about states of judgement and frustration.
If one looks back at the moments in their life of experiencing impatience, they will realize that most of the time, they would have overreacted and imagined the outcome to be much more serious than it really was.
Impatience thus can make one see the world in a negative light.
Some people may be experts at hiding their impatience. But it's important to address impatience on the inside because no matter how well one hides it on the outside, i.e. acting like they are fine, the unhappiness within will still continue if left unaddressed. So, to address impatience is not about suppressing it on the outside but rather it's about taking an inward journey to explore, accept, and understanding it so that one can begin the work of transforming it.
Realize the importance of accepting one's impatience. If one denies that one has impatience, then no work can be done. These days, there will always be a tendency for one to engage in acts of Self-Denial consciously or subconsciously. See Catalyst—Self-Denial for more details.
To prevent this, one can simply realize that as long as one experiences even a slight sense of unhappiness when one is faced with a time-consuming task, one is experiencing impatience. That is how one can truly see the presence of their impatience.
Path Of Creator
Impatience In Relation To The Path Of Creator
As the Seed Cause of all forms of Sufferings is Negative Ideas, let us look at the relationship between Impatience and Negative Ideas.
To learn more about Negative Ideas, see Catalyst - Discovering Negative Ideas for more detail.
To understand how impatience is related to Negative Ideas, we can first realize that when we are experiencing Impatience, we are experiencing Negative Reactions towards the Present Moment.
And what causes these Negative Reactions?
Our Negative Ideas!
So, whenever you experience the negative reactions brought about by your impatience, you can look for the "beliefs" that you hold that is making you react in such a way.
You can ask the following questions in moments of impatience to develop Self-Knowing:
"What kind of ideas am I experiencing in the mind at the moment?"
And to help you to discover your Negative Ideas, you can rephrase the question in this way:
"What is not ok about this experience?"
For example, when you experience impatience whilst waiting for a bus, you can ask yourself "what is not ok about this experience?" and try to rephrase the answers to "It is not ok...".
Perhaps you will discover the following Negative Ideas:
"It is not ok for the bus driver to be late."
"It is not ok for my time to be wasted"
"It is not ok for me to be late to class"
"it is not ok to be selfish"
"It is not ok to not care"
And so forth. The deeper you explore the mind, the more Negative Ideas you will discover that is unique to your own suffering experience.
How do Negative Ideas create Impatience
As previously stated, the seed cause for all suffering states of mind is Negative Ideas. And the more one becomes attached to their negative ideas, the more suffering states of mind they will experience.
So, how do Negative Ideas create the suffering state that we all know as impatience?
Realize that when Negative Ideas are experienced in different narratives, different suffering states of mind will arise. In terms of impatience, it is simply the experience of our Negative Ideas being triggered by a situation where we lack the means to escape from it, i.e. we have no choice but to endure the triggering of our Negative Ideas.
Notice that usually when one faces a suffering experience in life, the default tendency of the mind will be to find a way to escape it, to get away from the inner pains that the outer experience has triggered to surface.
When we are experiencing of impatience, we have no choice but to put up with our suffering states of the mind.
From a spiritual perspective, when we experience impatience, we are actually in a situation where we have no choice but to face our suffering states of mind, to face the spiritual lessons that are waiting for us to explore and graduate from.
The moments of impatience thus are great opportunities for one to develop the Knowing of the darkness within even more. The more one takes these opportunities to explore the inner darkness, one will be able to find the deeper causes of one's unhappiness within.
That is why the practice of meditation is so helpful. As one sits in meditation, unable to escape from the practice, one will be able to come face to face with their suffering states of mind to experience it directly.
And by Stilling the mind through the practice, one will gradually learn to not be so reactive to these suffering states of mind when they arise, which will help one to discover their deeper causes, taking them to discover the Negative Ideas that one created within.
Without developing a Still mind, one will not be able to learn the lessons that their impatience are bringing to them. One can simply become stuck in the reactive mind that is constantly analyzing and judging the outer experiences rather than using it to understand more about what's happening inside.
There are various free meditation practices on the course page that one can take on the courses page to develop a Still Mind.
Transforming Impatience With Self-Acceptance
The key to transforming the states of impatience is to develop Self-Acceptance.
Generally speaking, the more one works on their suffering states of mind—namely, the causes of Self-Rejection—the more the issues of impatience will naturally resolve themselves because when you have less to reject about the world, then you will encounter less situations when you have to face them.
The destination is towards the learning how to take one's time to enjoy every moment of one's life even if one is faced with a tedious task.
After all, if something needs to be done, why do it in pain when one can do it in enjoyment?
That is why the key to Self-Transformation is Self-Acceptance. The more one learns to love oneself, the clearer one will see the answers to this question.
Know and Transform The Self!
Reading articles helps with understanding, but to transform the mind, one realizes the truth from experience.
For such an enlightening journey, the Self-Transformation Course has everything you will ever need!
