In today’s high-speed society, the time-honored virtue of patience is in short supply. We expect patience in others—sometimes impatiently—but we often deny ourselves the serenity, steadiness, and balance that patience could bring to our own up-and-down lives.
As the story of Helen Keller shows, patience is not shoulder-shrugging indifference but rather action that calls upon the very strength of the soul. A severe illness in infancy left Helen deaf and blind—and rather unruly. When she was six, her parents hired 20-year-old Anne Sullivan, herself partially blind, to work with the restless child.
One evening after Helen’s out-of-control display at dinner—eating off the plates of others and even off the floor—Anne locked the two of them in the dining room and patiently taught etiquette. “I gave her a spoon,” Anne wrote, “which she threw on the floor. I forced her out of the chair and made her pick it up. . . . Then we had another tussle over folding her napkin.” 1 Hours later when the two emerged, Anne reportedly announced, “She folded her napkin.”
Eventually, Helen learned to read, write, and speak. In 1904 she graduated with honors from Radcliffe College, her long-time tutor Anne having patiently spelled out lectures into her palms.
Our perseverance may never be tried quite so dramatically, but we all face situations that require patience—with ourselves, with our neighbors, with our family. Are we gracious and compassionate when others make mistakes? When our dreams collide with our limitations, do resilience and a little humor accompany our efforts?
Said Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein of his work, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” 2 Patience doesn’t make the problems go away, but as Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan learned, there’s power in patience that makes us equal to the task.
Program #4073
1 In Helen Keller, The Story of My Life (1905), 307–8.
2 In Richard A. Singer Jr., Your Daily Walk with the Great Minds: Wisdom and Enlightenment of the Past and Present (2006), 4.