The one thing that separates us humans from the rest of the species is that our needs go way beyond the food, water, air and shelter that mother nature has hard-coded into all living beings.

Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing can be debated but the reality of it's existence and heavy influence on all our lives cannot be ignored. Much of our lives are guided by our desires.

We all desire to live a happy life, to establish our own identity as an individual, to succeed at something, to have that special someone, to be healthy, to travel, be entertained, eat good food and much more.

It's all part of the human experience I think and it's good that we have more to do than just the basic things. But there is a key element that we often forget about, in the pursuit of our desires. And that, is patience.

Patience Is A Virtue

You may have heard of an old saying, "Patience is a virtue". In the modern world that we live in, instant gratification has become somewhat of a 'way of life', and I can't stress how important of a quality and a rare one at that, patience has become.

Things take time. Achievements and progress takes time. There are things that you just can't get within 30 minutes, like your pizza, no matter how bad you want it. In fact most of the really important things in our lives demand an excruciatingly long time to materialise.

Today's generation that grew up in a world with fast internet connections, sometimes finds that too difficult to accept. But when reality strikes back hard, they often find themselves feeling overwhelmed and lost.

Life will always take you on a roller coaster ride with tons of ups and downs before you can finally taste victory. Patience is what will help you last throughout that journey. So, one can only imagine its importance.

But There's A Limit

Even the good things in life are to be taken/used in moderation and that applies to patience as well. Being patient doesn't mean being blind to the realisation of the inevitable failure of a decision.

We must always use our logic, intuition or any other decision making abilities at our disposal to make sure we don't waste our time being patient on something that leads nowhere.

Also, patience shouldn't encourage inaction. I read a quote today that goes, "I would rather be bloody at the end of the day, then unhurt with no progress made." Be patient to outlast the down phases of life but keep going forward still.

As Joyce Meyer said, "Patience is not simply the ability to wait - it's how we behave while we're waiting."