(According to Google) Patience means the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. For me, practicing patience has always been a battle and I don’t think that the media helps with it either. I also believe that we compare ourselves too much to what other people are doing in their lives that we fail to recognize the very good and fruitful things in our own lives. When we begin to compare ourselves and forget that we are each on different paths, that is when we become impatient.

I hate the feeling. It could feel like anxiety or uncertainty just overcoming my mind and body. I feel impatience in numerous aspects of my life. With regards to dance, I felt impatient this semester because I felt kept-back. And I truly was. I was away from the hands-on learning and technique training that I need to grow as a dancer. I felt hopeless. I think with this set-back it pushed me to grow mentally as a dancer/artist… if that makes any sense, and I think it is an important lesson to learn in this field to really expand your creative potential. You may actually surprise yourself with how creative you can be with many constraints and set-backs!

Right now, I feel impatience take over me when I look at how good other dancers are and then again, compare myself to what I am not. I question my journey and training in dance and question why I made certain decisions that just felt right at the moment, and how I got to where I am today. I trust it however. Patience is about trusting yourself and the decisions that you make. Most importantly, trusting that God is guiding you for these decisions through life despite the difficult courses it may take. 

This semester, time passed quickly and I realized I was impatient for nothing.

Though I was impatient, I realized that I was still improving on myself in various other ways that many people have not been able to discover yet in themselves (what I was talking about earlier- growing as a dancer mentally). So in a way, I felt like I was ahead. My circumstances worked for me rather than against me, though I felt uncomfortable on numerous occasions. But, that is only a sign of growth! 

In my opinion, being patient right now seems like a battle because 1. We compare ourselves too much to others and 2. Many of us do not yet know our life’s purpose as yet… so then, why is there a need to be impatient anyways? It’s a paradox of thoughts, but it is human, so don’t feel guilty or burdened to have these thoughts at all.

I am going to get a bit vulnerable with you all and share my list of all my ‘worries’ and things that I am impatient about right now. 

Here goes:

I am overwhelmed by all the opportunities I have available to me… sounds CRAZY I know. 

I’ve been impatient in not knowing where I am going career-wise. 

Impatient with where I am in life. 

I am comparing myself to people I follow on social media thinking that they have a better life than me. 

I am impatient with putting all of my skills to work for a greater good. 

This impatience ^ became an overwhelming domino effect for me over some months as it came across me through anger, worry, frustration, anxiety, unhappiness, and ultimately not taking the best care of myself. 

I believe that patience in life goes hand-in-hand with patience with yourself. It is okay to make mistakes and it is also okay to make choices that are good for you at this moment in time. I also believe that it is okay to be a little selfish with your time to invest it in yourself. Find what you like and find what you dislike. Try new things. Have those adventures for yourself and share it with others as well if you want to. Discover those ways to be patient with yourself and still enjoy where you are going in life, trusting that each step that you take will guide you and lead you to your purpose. 

Patience is a great leap of faith because you have to truly believe it and speak it to yourself daily. It is a mindset that I constantly battle with everyday if I am being honest and writing this is a bit of a challenge right now as well. This is my entire point of this blog too. Finding purpose in the patience and battles of life and that purpose through dance. Sometimes we are confused and we question the many aspects and outcomes of our life, but in the end we should choose to be brave enough to trust that we are where we need to be and we will end up where we need to be as well. Much like a step or a set of 8-counts in choreography…. you are patient in the learning, patient in the excitement backstage, patient as you perform, and as you trust your body and your mind to guide you through the choreography on-stage.

Like many things I/we practice in dance, we must also practice patience. 

I’m going to finish this my saying that patience is ultimately a strength as a human being. Patience reflects that you have the courage to go through your worst days knowing that in the end it will work out. Patience is humbling yourself on your best days and finding or being a source of light on your darkest days. Patience is maturity in knowing that you have a purpose to fulfill that can be drastically different from someone else’s… so why do we continue to compare? Patience is the appreciation of the littlest of things that make up the bigger ones. Patience is a practice by which you devote your time to and learn to live by. I challenge you today to be patient with the imperfect choreography of life!