In Praise of Patience
On Christmas Eve my Goddaughter, Anna, an up and coming public relations professional, asked me what were the most important things I had learned in business. It was an interesting question and it led us into a discussion about trust, discipline and intention.
Over the past few days I have thought more about that question. Upon reflection, I realized that one thing we didn’t discuss, patience, is probably at the top of the list.
Patience is a virtue that was respected by my parent’s generation and disregarded by mine. When I was young and as a restless child, it seemed like a passive way to approach a problem or challenge.
My mother believed that concepts such as patience and delayed gratification were important character traits, and worked tirelessly to cultivate them in her 3 children. At times her devotion to these principals felt like an anchor to my soul, but as an adult I’m grateful for her commitment to these ideals. Over the years, I have come to realize that patience combined with intention is the key to creating a life, and in our case a business, of purpose. It’s the space between carefully planting a rose and watching it bloom.
In her essay, The Power of Patience, Professor Jennifer Roberts writes that she has begun to take an active role in shaping her students temporal processing by “slowing down” the tempo of their learning. In one of her lessons she requires her art history students to spend a full three hours studying one painting.
In her essay she states that, while resistant to the exercise, her students are astonished by the potential unlocked by the process.
“What this exercise shows students is that just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it. Just because something is available instantly to vision does not mean that it is available instantly to consciousness. Or, in slightly more general terms: access is not synonymous with learning. What turns access into learning is time and strategic patience.”
Patience has helped me weather numerous corporate relocations and served me well as my 3 children progressed at vastly different rates of development. It also helped me through a variety of different business concepts over two years before I focused on the zen of slow cooking and then another nine months until I found my business partner, Jane McKay, to co-create the business with me.
And patience, in combination with discipline and effort, has allowed us to create a solid foundation for the zen of slow cooking over the past four years.
So as we embark on a new year of discovery we encourage you to take a look at your “to do” and lean in to the process of patience as your year unfolds. I believe this virtue, so underrated by my generation, can be the key that helps you realize your dreams.
Zen Moment
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
– Harriet Tubman
