Good morning, everybody. It is 3 a .m. here where
I'm at, and we're picking up where we left off
with the moral series. This is Food for Thought,
Thoughts If It Were You by Neogentrics. We're
going to go ahead and cover one of the last of
the morals, and that would be patience. By definition,
it's the capacity to accept or tolerate delay,
trouble, or suffering without getting angry or
upset. It's chiefly a British term for solitaire,
if you will. Patience is one of those skills
that a lot of people say they have, but can't
really demonstrate in any way, shape, or form.
It's often said that patience is a virtue, but
in this on -demand world, is being able to wait
patiently really still necessary? There are so
few things for which we really have to wait nowadays
that patience can seem an outdated idea. Even
the other uses of the word as a girl's name and
for a card game have largely disappeared, replaced
by more modern equivalents. Patience, then, is
the ability to wait calmly for or through something.
If it is a virtue, it seems likely that there
must be some element of suffering in the waiting,
even if the suffering is only boredom and not
necessarily physical pain. Self -control, to
be able to control our own reactions to the situation
and endure it without complaint, whereas humility
is to accept that you are no more important than
anyone else and there is no particular reason
why you should not wait, and generosity... To
smile at the world even when it seems to be conspiring
against you. It's not that patience is a single
virtue. Rather, it's combined with these others.
This is the reason why I'm wanting to cover them
so fervently. By covering all the different virtues,
I cover the worlds as well that back them up.
Because each of these morals backs each other's
up. So this brings up the next question. Why
is patience important? Let's look at the Stanford
experiments, okay? Back in the 1960s and 1970s,
a series of studies were carried out at Stanford
University on delaying gratification. Broadly,
children were given a small treat, such as a
marshmallow or a biscuit. They were told that
they could eat it immediately, but that... If
they waited to eat it until the researchers returned,
they would get two treats instead of one. Or
a preferred treat, if you will. The researchers
then left the room for 10 to 15 minutes before
returning. And as you might expect, some of the
children ate the treats immediately. And others
waited for the researchers to return and claimed
their greater reward. What is interesting about
this experiment is the... is that following up
follow -up studies found that the children who
waited and claimed the double reward generally
had better outcomes later in childhood for example
10 years later their parents reported that they
were more competent and they had better educational
attainment and lower body mass index the irony
huh The Stanford experiment showed effectively
that patience does matter. Being able to accept
a delay in receiving a reward and understanding
that the rewards of that can be greater can lead
to increased success in life. Let's look at patience
versus this god -awful world, okay? The growth
in technology, and particularly smartphones,
you know, has led to instant gratification becoming
the norm. Computer games provide instant feedback.
You know, we can post things on social media
and get an immediate response from our friends.
Information is available at the touch of a screen.
No more having to go to the library to look things
up. You know, it's just... How do I put it? And
let's start... I mean, Amazon has invested in
drone technology because it says its customers
are too impatient to wait for next day delivery
when they order something they want it now, not
later. So, in other words, we have become used
to instant rather than delayed gratification.
The thought of waiting for anything has become...
What's the word I'm looking for here? Ineffective.
Obsolete. There we go. Put this together with
the results of the Stanford experiments and the
picture starts to look more quite worrying If
success in life comes from being able to wait
are we raising a generation or several for that
matter who will struggle with life? Anecdotally,
there are reports that this may be true. Employers
have commented that young people joining the
workforce now expect everything to be given to
them. They don't necessarily expect to work for
their rewards, and they don't expect to take
time to build up their skills. Perhaps this is
an exaggeration, but indeed, perhaps all generations
have felt like this, but the picture is not reassuring
nonetheless. Fortunately, it is possible to still
take action to develop your own patience, and
for parents, that of your children as well. Cultivating
Patience Some ideas for cultivating patience
in yourself or your children include identify
something that you want to buy or do, but cannot
afford and save up until you can. Although particularly
effective for children, this is a useful exercise
for adults too, particularly those who are prone
to spending on credit. With children, you may
want to encourage them to earn money through
doing chores that they would not otherwise do.
you want to save each period. Next, go sit in
an art gallery and look at a single picture for
an extended period of time. Art historian Jennifer
Roberts at Harvard University recommends three
hours, explaining that this is meant to be an
uncomfortably long time. However, even sitting
in front of one picture for 15 -20 minutes will
enable you to see new things and experience the
idea of being impatient and then settling down.
Next, take up gardening, or something, and pursue
it over a period of weeks or months. Growing
plants, particularly from a seed, cannot be hurried.
Neither can the seasons, for that matter. Spending
time gardening is a useful reminder of the slow
way of life and having to wait to see what will
happen. How do you know that the seed you put
in the ground is actually a watermelon seed?
It could be a pumpkin seed. is also very good
for your humility as Sometimes plants die despite
your best efforts and slugs and snails can be
hard to control No comment there. I've tried
trust me. I've tried Read classic books classic
books such as those of Charles Dickinson Anthony
Trollope C .S. Lewis and so on are often very
very long and because they were written and published
in serial form Weekly or monthly their language
is often difficult for modern audiences with
you know long passages of description taking
time to read them in Book form not in an electrical
reader such as in Kindle your tablet your phone
or a computer Can help you to develop more patience
and a longer attention span plus it keeps you
from skipping through the book Next Put away
all screens for a set period. There's a growing
recognition that frequent and regular interaction
with technologies can affect neural pathways
and perhaps prevent you from improving your patience.
Try putting away your technology for a defined
period, say an hour at first, but then trying
to work up to a whole holiday and see how you
get on. Okay? You may find this a little irritating
at first, but it's really worth the effort. There
are, of course, many other options for slowing
down and developing your ability to wait. These
were just a few examples. For me, I'd just go
to the park and sit there and stare in the sky.
So with that, I leave you with this final thought.
The expansion of instant gratification in our
world may make it feel that patience is overrated,
and that impatience is necessary, but those who
can wait... often get a greater reward in the
end this suggests that trying to develop patience
is more important now than it ever has been before
there are some things it can't be argued okay
which cannot and should not be hurried nobody
has yet found a way to reduce the length of pregnancy
for example learning to wait with patients could
bring dividends in more than one way okay So
with that, that's all I have to say about patients.
It's not really that complicated a topic. I thank
you for listening yet again. And like I said
before, if you have any comments or concerns,
I'm here on the Anchor app. Just find my channel,
search Neogentrics, N -E -O -G -E -N -T -R -I
-C -S, and favorite my channel. Send me a message
whenever you can on any topics y 'all have that
you would like me to cover. Or if I missed something
and you wanted to add to the podcast that I currently
just did. or any other previous one for that
matter. Hit me up. I'm also available on iTunes
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I thank you and have a great rest of your day.