pa·tience
[pey-shuh
ns]
noun
1.
the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, withoutcomplaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2.
an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to havepatience with a slow learner.
3.
quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.
5.
Also called patience dock. a European dock, Rumex patientia, of the buckwheat family, whose leavesare often used as a vegetable.
I did not know some of these definitions. A card game? Really? *googles up the game* I guess I've always had a more "life-experience" kind of definition. It goes like this:
According to Karen; aka, Mom, Wife, Writer:
Patience is: a virtue, HARD, not always quiet (especially when the mama bear claws come out). It's a VERB, it takes works. It's actively controlling your emotions and actions. It is not passive. Yes, it is kindness, friendship, and showing love for others. But it's watching those friends get published, happily, while you...still try.
It's repeating yourself for the third time to the child who's not listening, because they're not doing it out of spite--the TV's just too loud. Patience is turning down the TV without yelling at them. It's something that we seem to expect of others, but want to be forgiven of for our lack thereof. "What, I lack patience? Come say that to my face." lol Sorry...couldn't help myself.
Patience is a part of life's great struggle, the part that says, "Don't just do what's right. Do it with the right attitude. You'll be a much better person for it. And bring others with you."
What do writers seem to be the most impatient about? Are we more impatient with ourselves? Or with others?
Writers are probably most impatient with the snail's pace at which the whole publishing industry works. Not that our patience is justified--these things take time. But we want the agent to reply to our query within 10 minutes of us sending it. We want the agent to respond to the full we sent an hour after we sent it. We want the first publisher the agent talks to to buy our novel. And we want it published next week. Oh, and we want the royalty check YESTERDAY! Not that my personal experience goes beyond waiting for the query reply, but these are the ones I most often hear about. :)
ReplyDeleteComing to the US from the UK, I had to get out of the habit of referring to the card game you call "Solitaire" as "Patience." No-one knew what I was talking about. To me, "Solitaire" was a game where you have to remove all the pegs on a board by jumping over pegs until there's only one left. I don't know what you call that. :)
I think we generally live in a culture of impatience now.. since we can obtain so many things so quickly, we have learned that waiting is a negative thing. When really, sometimes waiting is the best thing. If nothing else, it builds character. ;)
ReplyDeleteI would say we're definitely more impatient with ourselves, at least that's the case with me. I get impatient with my writing progress. I want to be able to sit down and shoot the words out of me, like some kind of magic. No mistakes. Just perfect! Wouldn't that be nice? :)
ReplyDelete(visiting from the A-Z challenge)