What Are the Limits of Patience?

8/2/2024

I have always wondered about the limits of patience.

I’m not referring to the varying degrees of patience individuals possess or display; I’m talking about where one should draw the line concerning patience.

At what point should one refuse to bear problems, delays, or suffering without becoming irritated about them?

Calmness, composure, self-restraint, and forbearance are all admirable qualities, perhaps even virtues, yet at what point do they fail to bear fruit, stop helping spiritually, and become impediments?

Jesus reached His limit most dramatically during the cleansing of the temple. Yet, His patience wore thin on many other occasions, albeit far more subtlety.

What are the limits of patience in this era of limitless tolerance for everything but the rejection of the Litmus Test issues?

On a more personal level, what are the limits of patience with strangers, friends, and family? When can or should one say enough is enough and give impatience free reign?

There is no definite answer to any of the above. Individual results depend heavily on individual circumstances and inevitably vary. I understand that. Just thinking aloud.

7 Comments

bruce g charlton

8/2/2024 19:17:18

The limits of patience out to be greater than I can attain, that's for sure.

https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2013/07/on-being-irritable.html

Francis Berger

8/3/2024 08:24:59

@ Bruce - I suppose the underlying motivations of people who intentionally irritate help define the limits of my patience. Overbearing people who utterly lack any sense of self-awareness also fit in there somewhere.

Put bluntly, my patience wanes whenever I sense someone is intentionally dumping (pointless, ill-motivated, unacknowledged) shit on my head or lacks the awareness to recognize that they are dumping said shit on my head.

8/3/2024 08:53:16

" intentionally dumping (pointless, ill-motivated, unacknowledged)"...

You lost me (i.e. I didn't understand what you were getting at) from here onwards; presumably an idiomatic usage, unfamiliar to me...

8/4/2024 08:52:20

@ Bruce - Sorry for the vulgarity and lack of clarity. I was generally referring to people -- mentally fit adults -- who needlessly burden, provoke, or annoy others with various difficulties and problems, particularly when they do it intentionally or appear to lack the self-awareness to recognize that they are trying the patience of others.

Evan Pangburn

8/4/2024 23:25:52

I suspect it might be some kind of North American way of putting things. I'm American and knew exactly what he meant.

Come to think of it, I don't recall ever hearing a Brit say things along the lines of "giving me shit", or "I've been getting shit from...".

JMSmith link

8/4/2024 14:38:55

You may have noticed that there are some squabbles in legal prosecution of the alleged 9/11 masterminds. This is 23 years after the event. I think the families of those killed would be right to lose patience after 23 years.

Patience is a virtue, but we often call patience what is, in fact, the vice of cowardice. I'm guilty of this. I call it patience, but it is really just avoiding confrontation.

Perhaps the answer to your question begins with the old proverb, "a watched pot never boils." Some things take time and impatience is simply the unwillingness to accept this reality. It takes time for a child to learn something, for instance, and patience is accepting this reality. But nothing takes forever, so patience does not mean just waiting forever. If "the pot has not boiled" after three hours, a certain annoyance may be justified.

8/4/2024 17:42:51

@ JM - Yes, I agree with those observations. The limits of patience should also be reached when you realize that the reason the pot didn't boil after three hours lies in someone else intentionally keeping the heat low enough to prevent the water from boiling.

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What Are the Limits of Patience?

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