When I try to be patient on my own, my patience is forced and short-lived. It is obvious to everyone that I am desperately trying to be patient.
Interpretation
True patience is a natural quality that cannot be forced. Trying to be patient through sheer will often leads to failure and frustration.
This quote by Mother Angelica highlights the difference between genuine patience and the forced kind. When we attempt to be patient without truly embodying that quality, it often becomes apparent to others, and our struggle can undermine our efforts. Instead of relying solely on our willpower, we should cultivate patience from a place of understanding and acceptance, allowing it to develop naturally.
In practice
In a self-help speech, someone might refer to this quote to emphasize the importance of self-acceptance in the journey of personal growth.
I am not like a pebble on the beach - a grain of sand on the seashore or just one of millions of human beings past, present and future. No, I am a unique human being loved by God as if I were an only child - the only fruit of his creative powers.
I must not permit the evil capabilities of human nature to sour my faith in the tremendous good that is possible despite the frailty of that nature.
The sinner who suddenly realizes God's love for him and then looks at his rejection of that love feels a loss similar to the death of a loved one. A deep void is created in the soul and a loneliness akin to the agony of death.
Our memories are our own, and we cannot blame anything or anyone in the past for any pain dwelling there. If we open the door to them or keep hashing over past incidents in our minds, we have only ourselves to blame.
Man can and does rationalize his sins. He finds reasons for all his weakness, invents excuses that first calm and then deaden his conscience. He blames God, society, education, and environment for his wrong doing.
Love has been defined, analyzed, explained and excused. It has been the cause of wars, feuds, heroism, martyrdom, inordinate passion, and beautiful friendships. It pulls two people of opposite temperaments together into a married state and permits them to live happily. It makes friends understand each other without the necessity of words.
If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.
Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
the knowledge of impermanence that haunts our days is their very fragrance.
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.
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