Patience

Sometimes it just becomes so difficult to breath when you don’t know where to turn to under the given circumstances … nowhere to run nowhere to hide but face the situation in its face … I wonder what The Creator’s plans are … our lives are based on this trust that we have on His decisions because being our Creator we believe He takes the best decisions for us. Difficult periods are so hard to spend, they seem longer than regular hours and days… but from what we have learned is that all time, whether good or otherwise passes because time keeps moving forward there is no reverse gear on time. People have been through so much in their lives they have given really difficult tests and there are examples where some passed these and some failed … patience is the key to pass through all such difficulties and challenges but this patience is just in itself such a humongous task that it takes us much time and experience to gain and apply on our personality. Those who do gain this strength are surely successful others who are learning falling and learning and falling again are going through that difficult phase of gaining this strength.

The dictionary definition of patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. It is amazing how so many if not all religions promote patience. 

Patience is what made all the enlightened people of this world succeed... People from different backgrounds have created examples of patience like scientists, religious, people/scholars; parents, professionals had to and still have to face such incidents in life where they only have to be extremely patient.

We have many such examples from history where people went through great labor and saved their cause by displaying magnanimous amounts of patience. For average human beings sometimes when a person has to act upon something patiently, inside his body there is a war going on where the heart and the brain are urging to act equally against and retaliate or even defend but the conscience and the good nature soul calms the person and asks to stay patient and assures better, positive and long lasting results. A personal experience has been that situations hit us in the spur of a moment and that’s the real test when you have to order your brain to take the right decision and many of us fail to do that and fall prey in the hands of personal ego, pride or simply rescuing myself! The missing element is looking at and considering the bigger picture the larger goal the everlasting or at least more lasting results. Some of us may be thinking that the world will eat us up if we don’t do ‘tit for tat’ and they do it and even get away with that but that’s nothing special maybe 95-97% people indulge in ‘giving it to them’ ‘in your face’ and the like but that takes us in much lower degrees of humanity … but hold on let me also add that this doesn’t involve those circumstances where for example soldiers are in the battle field in a state of war and do not fight back for the true cause they are standing for but the test for them also comes in how they deal with their enemy … and I’ll quote an example which explains this concept perfectly.. Imam Ali Alaihis’salam who was posted as the flag bearer by the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) and is also the first Imam for Muslims was an unbeatable man of the field... he is reported to be in a battle fighting gallantly with his sword  when he brought down one of the enemy soldier and as soon as he was about to kill him the man spitted on Imam Ali’s face and at that particular moment within that second he withdrew his sword and refrained from killing him… the man was obviously astonished beyond his imagination and couldn’t help asking why he was pardoned after such horrendous act upon which Imam Ali replied like a true human who stands as the epitome of humanity that "Your property and your life have become sacrosanct to me. I am not authorized to slay you. I can receive permission to kill only in holy combat, in self-defense commanded by God. 
Just a few moments ago, I had overcome you in battle, knocked you to the ground and was on the point of slaying you. But when you spat in my face, my selfish anger was aroused against you. If I had killed you, I would have slain you not for God's sake but for my own selfish reason; they would then have called me not a champion warrior or valiant, but a murderer and a coward. When you spat in my face, my selfish passion threatened to overwhelm me, so instead of striking you with the sword for my own sake I struck my passion for the sake of God, Exalted is He. There you have the reason for your escape."      

Hence we notice that anger mostly causes a lot of damage in our life instead if we act patiently we would end up saving the day for ourselves and others.

 “Anger is a fire kindled, he who restrains anger extinguishes the fire; he who gives vent to it is the first to be consumed by it.” – Imam Ali Alaihis’salam   

There are many other remarkable examples of patience from history. Look up on the battle of Karbala fought 1400 years ago fought in the barren desert in Iraq where the grandson of the Holy Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) fought against the tyrant of his times even when his army was only comprised of not even 100 soldiers most of them his own sons and family members against an army of thousands. But these few also stood their ground and patiently defended their cause. So much so that the enemy cut down water supply and slaughtered the 6 month baby boy of Imam Hussain Alaihis’salam when he asked for water for his baby. Hence Karbala became the living example of patience and endurance for the world.  

As kids we are taught patience and other important virtues but the idea is to remember all such lessons for the rest of our lives and apply them accordingly.