It is quality time between a parent and the child. The parent has bought a new game and wants to teach it to the child. All begins well. The parent hopes that the child will pick up the game fast. It doesn’t happen. The parent becomes irritable. Instead of patiently explaining the steps, s/he starts scolding the child. The quality time would have been wonderful if the parent had not lost the patience. More the irritability, less the patience.
It is not just games, but teaching anything to the children (such as studies or even tying shoe laces) requires patience – lots of it. The parents know it and repent losing it. How did this parent – who began cheerfully – lose the patience?
Unhappiness (sadness, fear, anger) is unpleasant. When we experience these emotions, we don’t like them. So we want escape from them as soon as possible. We would like to get rid of them from our mind – as quickly as possible. If ‘teaching the child’ is perceived as the source of the troubling emotion, we would like to ‘get rid of’ or finish the activity as soon as possible. This means loss of patience – and more trouble!
This principle is not only true for parent- child relations but also for any relationship. For example, consider the boss – employee relationship. Suppose the employee has to explain some tricky and important situation to the boss. So s/he begins with a lot of patience. But soon due to some reason (such as a nasty comment by the boss or inability of the boss to accept the situation) the employee becomes irritated. So her/his voice starts rising. This is obviously against her/his own interest. Yet the patience is lost – resulting in an outburst and a fiasco of the briefing – leading to problems for the employee. The reverse can also be true: the boss’s loss of patience resulting in harm for the company.
This kind of damage harms any type of business deal. Take the simple case of a lady wanting to buy some fruits. Some offensive comment by the lady irritates the fruit seller. So he loses his patience, tells the lady to get lost and in the process loses his sale. As famous writer P. L. Deshpande observed that salesmen in saree shops are the epitome of patience! If the salesman is cool, he does not lose the patience – and finally gets the sale!
What is the meaning of ‘cool’? Cool means a person who is able to keep the emotions under control for a long time. This ability to remain cool for a long time is an asset. The cooler a person is, the more patience s/he has.
Emotionality leading to losing patience is true not only for the unhappy emotions but also for the emotion of happiness. Surprised? Consider a player playing a badminton match. She is very patient. By playing long rallies with patience, she is nearing the win. But due to the excitement of anticipation of winning, she loses her patience. She starts ‘going for the kill’: trying to hit the winning shot too early. This leads to losing a few important points and possibly the match. Very often we realize that a game is actually a match of nerves i.e. which of the players is cooler and has more patience.
Ever wondered why a patient is called a ‘patient’? A sick person is commonly emotionally upset and low on patience. There are many patients who become so impatient that they pop all the doses of medicines for the day in quick succession – in order to get well soon! So, probably, generations of doctors have been telling sick people, “Be patient! Be patient!” Whether it is healing of fractures or pregnancy, patients need to be patient. They need to be cool and control their emotions.
The famous ‘Marshmallow test’ done by the Stanford University is a test of how patience pays. In that test, young school kids were given two options: have a marshmallow immediately or wait for some time. If they wait, they would get a second marshmallow. Years later, those small kids who were able to wait, were shown to have performed better in school ending test, had lower substance abuse, had better social skills and generally were more successful in life. More control over emotions > more patience > more success in life!
How not to lose patience? The key is subduing emotions and preventing them from kicking out the patience. This is such an important ability that it can help in practically all facets of life: from dealing better with spouse or kids to dealing better with office colleagues, doing better in business deals, winning games and even doing more effective bargaining while shopping!
