Develop Patience as a Skill

Whenever I am on one of my bikepacking trips, I am reminded of the value of patience.

We take so much for granted in the twentieth century.?When we are thirsty, we simply go to a tap.?If we want food, we are overwhelmed with options within an easy walking distance.?Shelter could not be easier too – simply return home to a warm and comfortable bed.?

So many of these things become so much more complex on my bikepacking trips.?When I am thirsty,a water source needs to be found and the water needs to be filtered.?I need to carry enough on my bike to make it to the next water source – which adds weight to the bike up steep climbs.?

I burn so many calories riding between 12 and 18 hours a day, that I need to be conscious of replenishing them.?High calorie foods also need to be packed on the bike, and the next stop where I can purchase something to eat becomes a constant line of thought.?Even unpacking and re-packing to camp for a single night takes hours.

While I choose all of this and consider it part of the adventure, it also provides me with opportunities to reflect on how for many of us, the patience to do all of this would need to be developed.?With so much at our fingertips, how do we learn the skill of being patient in a busy world full of conveniences?

I often read on these rides and you may have seen recently I have been reflecting on the messages of The Crossroad by Mark Donaldson, the first recipient of the Victoria Cross since the 1940s.

While I was considering this very topic, it seemed Donaldson was doing the same in the section of the book I was reading.

Now fully inducted into the SAS, he is about to marry his partner with whom he has a newborn daughter and a new home in Perth. He’s a long way from the younger version of himself with no direction and no responsibility.?

He is now actively going on missions to Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor and even though it is everything he trained for, it is still now what he expected.?He had this perception of an action-packed lifestyle where he would see near constant combat and action – but the reality was a lot of time spent waiting around for things to happen.

Waiting, waiting.

At this point in the book, he's quite frustrated because after working towards this for three years, he honestly just desperate to be in a gunfight.?I guess that is a desire to test of to prove himself and see if he can actually handle himself in the real world of combat.

Every time he gets close to going on a mission, it gets cancelled or he doesn't get selected.?So there's a growing sense of frustration.

When he does get deployed often the mission involves sitting at the base for days on end, or days and days of quiet reconnaissance, simply sitting outside a village and watching.?For days, with little food, almost no water and searing heat baring down on them, he was one of three men whose only job was to watch.?They couldn’t move, they couldn’t speak above the barest of whispers so as not to jeopardise whatever was planned ahead.?

Time after time, this happened again and again, and each time, the call came on the radio to return to base without any engagement.

Nothing happened.?

In fact, many missions in the book he describes were like this.?You had to be patient as a core skill, and see the broader goal rather than the moment at hand.

How many of us – if we are honest – would have the patience for this kind of work?

In today's world, both in our careers as well as in our day-to-day lives, we rarely have to be patient anymore because everything happens either instantly or at least, very, very quickly.

In our earlier evolution as humans, we naturally had patience because everything took time and everything was difficult. Survival, getting enough to eat, creating shelter and being safe from predators were hard work and the focus of our days.?

Then these things became easier and easier.?And so we started taking them for granted.

If we wanted to watch a movie ten years ago, you went to Blockbuster Video down the road, and you stood there and looked at everything on the shelf until you saw a movie you wanted to watch. Then you realised everyone else had the same though – and none are available as everyone else has rented a copy.

Now we just go on Netflix and we spend 4 hours trying to decide and argue about what we're going to watch and then end up watching nothing because the choice was the choice was so overwhelming.

You get the point.

Even in our careers, people are getting ahead faster and faster.?People are getting promoted faster and faster, particularly because of the supply and demand of today's world. And that's a good thing.

There is something to be said about impatience too.?After all, impatience and a desire to do things better and faster has always led us to innovate more.?Now we can fly to England in 16 hours – and direct on some airlines, rather than taking three months to get there.?

That's a good thing.

But if you don't develop patience as a skill, you might not be as good as you want to be in your particular field because you want to try to get ahead too fast, maybe you're not really developing the skills that you need to.

The more you want something, the more impatient you are likely to be.?But ask yourself, what does this situation demand??Will constantly pushing ahead get me where I want to go faster, or is this the time to enjoy the experience and soak it all up?

Patience can be your most valuable tool at these times.