Patience – The Key to Life: Written by Michael Onyegide

Back in the day, this is a “virtue” I very much lacked. I was the kind of person that gets to a bank premises, sees about 15 – 20 people queuing at the ATM and just go back, irrespective of how I need(ed) the money.
I remember during the Orientation Camp during my National Youth Service year, I sometimes went to bed hungry because I couldn’t join the large number of people queued up waiting to be served camp food.

What is Patience? In simple terms, “patience is basically waiting with difficulties. It’s confidence in yourself with a good feeling of hope.”
I’m talking from experience when I say Patience is very difficult at times, if not most times, that is why it had been said that ‘Patience is a Virtue’. Unfortunately many lack this virtue. Most times the people who are incapable of doing things on their own, such as handicaps confined to a wheel chair or sick patients on hospital beds tend to be more patient that those who are capable.

In today’s world of ‘instant results’, technological advancement has allowed us to obtain, experience, and consume practically anything we want – almost immediately. Do we even need to be patient anymore?
Well, if you want to reach those success goals or relationship goals, probably the answer is an emphatic and a resounding YES.

Sometimes our goals and everything worthwhile at all cannot just take place right away. It takes time and dedication to work and effort to achieve.
Now don’t get me wrong, When a person endures a difficult situation, it does not mean he or she should just sit and wait for magic to happen or change that situation. Patience is doing something about the situation and waiting for the result of what you did to fix it. Lets not mix patience with neglecting time.

Most times this virtue works magic. Whether in loosing weight, quitting smoking, raising children or in any unexpected difficult circumstance. Just keep in mind that patience will work wonders if you give it the time it needs.
At a point in our lives we may have faced situations like this, or we are presently in one.

I remember when I was fresh from high school back then and everybody was working towards getting into the University.
Then, many classmates of mine got into various tertiary institutions and it seemed like I wasn’t going to get in. Like I said earlier, patience is a virtue I lacked growing up. I cried day and night and sometimes blamed my parents like they were responsible for me not getting into school.

For someone who wanted to be an Engineer, I was actually ready to take a course in Animal Science and Husbandry from a Tertiary Institution in a remote area of my state just because I wanted to join the ‘pack’ then, being called an “Undergraduate”.
I learned this virtue (patience) the hard way, of course I had no choice, I had to wait. Then I got a call that i’d been admitted on MERIT to study Electrical/Electronics Engineering.

Time is a big factor in being patient.
Joyce Meyer once said, “Patience is not the ability to wait, but how you are while waiting”.
Patience is more than just surviving. It is more than waiting. Patience is about the courage to continue, the strength to smile through pain, and the hope that no matter how rough the weather – the storm will pass.

It will always pass.

Mr. Michael Onyegide is an Internet savvy, writer who is very passionate about the game of football. He holds B.Eng from Imo State
University and a Telemarketing Diploma from Texas. He can be reached on Instagram and Twitter with the handle @michaelonyegide.