Finding the time for patience

When we are feeling impatient we are often irritable as well, and these go together whenever time is a factor – slow-moving traffic, work deadlines, getting the children ready for school, queueing in shops and so on.

We find other people are too slow, and there are never enough hours in the day.  Some of this has arisen because technology is so instant:  it has trained us to be impatient and irritable with anyone who doesn’t reply to a text, voicemail or email within a few short minutes.  There’s a term for this impatience now – hurry sickness, “a malaise in which a person feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay.”

Then according to British psychologist Lee Chambers*, “We lose patience with those we love who don’t move at the same speed […] and we struggle to be connected and empathetic, as emotional support for others is a time drain.”   This can lead to feeling that we are increasingly isolated from those around us.  If we constantly decline help (believing we can do everything faster by ourselves) other people will leave us to it.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African proverb

The stress related to this impatience and irritation is, of course, damaging to our health and it is even considered to be detrimental to our longevity, as revealed in a long-term study.  In Okinawa, Japan, there are twice as many locals (per 100,000) reaching 100 years old as there are in parts of Europe.  These Japanese centenarians have a slower sense of time, and little idea of punctuality.  They apparently have stress-resistant personalities, having been found to have a stress-resistance gene that is associated with longevity. 

Socialising is also one of the reasons many Okinawans live healthily to a hundred and more.  But, adds the research lead, Dr Bradley Willcox**, their secret to a long and healthy life, “really boils down to balance.” 

Balance is what most of us are looking for, to feel at peace, and in harmony with others, rather than out there all by ourselves.  Taking the flower remedy Impatiens will help to restore our equilibrium, and to remind us that we are all dependent on each other.

Image by uniquehumour    

* In the Huffington Post.

** As reported by the World Economic Forum