We begin taking action as soon as we are born. We move, we cry, we wiggle, we try to get a reaction from others... most likely from our mother, so we will be fed, changed, or comforted. We live to get results. We don't live just to survive to the next day, although that may have been the original plan. Now, we find comfort and accomplishment in having our actions result in some event, large or small. Taking action and having no resulting event can become a huge frustration. We are used to getting some kind of satisfaction that we can have a purpose, a goal met, either by reaction or by product of our efforts.
The feeling of ineffectual efforts is one of supreme powerlessness. If we cannot Make Something Happen, we keep trying until we have some kind of result. Sometimes this is a negative result, not really what we desired, but given the possibility of having no result at all, and therefore thinking ourselves invisible, nonexistent, or unimportant, we sometimes choose the negative result because at least it gives us evidence of our life.
This can become a bad habit, one that keeps us in the victim mode, because we feel that whatever we do, it turns out badly. We want results and we get them, but we fail to see the value in simply being patient enough until we feel it is the right time to take some action that might result in a more positive outcome.
Patience brings wisdom... waiting brings more information... wisdom and waiting together sometimes gives us the results we were hoping for, without having done anything but let things be.
But we are so programmed to DO and ACT that we don't want to wait! We want to get there, and then when we are we don't know what to do with ourselves so we look for the next thing to do to get us somewhere else.
If anyone knows how to speed up the path to patience and wisdom, please let me know...
