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Sitting to write this piece took me a few years back as I reminisced on the moments that changed my life. As I connected the dots, I realised how timing was crucial to my growth and how I unknowingly walked the path of the patient man.
Looking back, I realised how skill, character, and every fundamental principle that enables men to rise has limits when isolated. Together, they can be a formidable base to build on but still, there is only so high a building can go. One principle that I have come to appreciate is timing. Timing is everything and it often makes the difference. Because even giants fall to underdogs and the mighty to damning by the lowly not because they lacked skill or character but simply because they lacked an understanding of timing. Knowing when is as such a crucial skill that must be learned.
“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”
Lao Tzu
Life is timing and in every fragment of life, we see this timing reflected in the seasonal planting of crops or in the dawning of the sun. While timing is crucial to everything, it takes patience; the long-dreaded wait and patience takes trust. Trust is absolute, it is on the far side of reason, unwavering, patient and committed and leaves no room for doubt or the inclination to confirm. And it is scary because it leaves us vulnerable. Yet each day we rise with a modicum of trust in our daily lives from the mindless expression that our drivers won’t drive us into the sea, or our doctors to the other side of existence. Trust is a risk but one we must all take. Trust takes wisdom and as we learn to trust, we learn patience and in patience, we appreciate timing.
Patience is not an endless wait, it is learning to trust that the sum of our efforts, grace and a spark of divinity can and will result in a favourable outcome. Trust is hard and patience much harder, but it is for this that we persevere that the sweat and the will to push has meaning, that our lives are an expression of our will to succeed not because success is a possibility but because we give it certainty by our decision to choose and to walk the path boldly.
There is no victory without patience, no conqueror without trust in the ability of the simple to excel. We must learn to trust, applying wisdom, not fear or the scary thought of uncertainty to drive our actions. And as we trust, we must learn to appreciate the path of the patient man, building our capacity to do as we wait, sharpening our focus on a clear goal that enables us to read the wind and to ultimately set sail.
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