Never Lose Hope And Let Patience Thin Out
George Bernard Shaw said, "Two things define you: Your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything." He elsewhere wrote that all admirable human traits ensue from the womb of patience. The most significant human attribute is patience. Patience opens up a plethora of blessings and benefits for a person eternally tied to the apron strings of this divine quality. All scriptures categorically eulogise the significance of patience. The Quran states, 'Innallaha Ma As Sabireen' - God is with those who have patience.
English poet John Milton wrote in On His Blindness, "They also serve who only stand and wait." To have patience is to have a divine sense. Human history is full of instances that consolidate our faith in the power of patience. We often get irritated and start cursing ourselves and those around us when things go awry. But we forget nature's perennial law that one gets everything eventually, provided one has patience.
When young Alexander the Great planned to subjugate East - India and its extensions - one of his wise friends advised him to have patience and tried to dissuade him from going to the far East with a tired and jaded army. He also said that his time to subdue the East would come. He must have patience till then. However, the young and reckless Alexander didn't heed his friend's sage advice and finally reached India. But he had to return to Greece. Disillusioned, he died on the way. If only Alexander had a modicum of patience, the history of the East would have been different.
Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming, who discovered Penicillin in 1928, wrote in his autobiography that it was because of endless patience, he finally discovered the panacea that saved the lives of millions. He failed nearly 100 times before discovering an antidote that would be harmless.
Louis Pasteur and Thomas Alva Edison never gave up. They waited patiently to get that proverbial Eureka moment to discover and invent something that could change the collective destiny of mankind.
Had Rabindranath Tagore lost patience and stopped writing because he started feeling that he wasn't producing anything worthwhile, the world would never have got Gitanjali and its sublime 103 poems. His elder brother Satyendranath Tagore exhorted him to go on and write verses without losing patience. The rest is history. Patience teaches us that better times are about to come, and, in the process, it defines our attitude. 'Be still sad heart, cease repining/Behind the clouds is the sun, still shining.' It's one human quality that strengthens the character and gives insights into things, people and phenomena.
An impulsive person, however intelligent he may be, loses life's great opportunities destined to appear at their time. Remember the age-old Hindi maxim, ' Samay se pahle aur bhagya se adhik kisi ko kuchh nahin milta' - one doesn't get anything before time and more than his earmarked destiny. This is not a fatalistic adage. It has a hidden message: only by dint of inexhaustible patience does one get what he is destined to. So, never lose hope and let patience thin out .
Authored by: Sumit Paul
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