Patience is a virtue
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 6, 5 September 2025, page no 32.
As the older members of the education community, retired teachers have time to reflect on the past, present, and future. One aspect of our lives today is the speed at which everything is moving: days run into days, weeks into weeks, and years into years. And then we wonder where the time has gone.
We also experience the speed at which our daily lives move. People rushing to work; traffic eager to reach its destination as quickly as it can; mothers trying to do too many things at once; children growing up before their time. These are just a few examples that come to mind.
In all this movement, we seem at times to have lost patience with each other and the world around us. The lack of patience on the road leads to “road rage” and accidents. With a little more tolerance, everyone would reach their destination safely. A wise old teacher in my early days of schooling repeatedly said: “Better to be late than dead on arrival.”
How can we learn these lessons? Children are taught social skills as part of the prep curriculum and then throughout their schooling. This includes sharing, taking turns, and tolerance for others, all of which are part of patience. Waiting for results or waiting to know the outcome of a story or film can be exciting, but equally, the suspense can be unbearable. Either way, patience is a virtue most of us try to have in our everyday existence.
So how come it’s so hard to implement and even harder to maintain once you make progress? The problem with “becoming” patient is that you can’t practice it without being put in a situation that requires it.
Benjamin Franklin once said: “He that can have patience can have what he will.”
William Shakespeare wrote: “How poor are they who have no patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
Patience is a virtue that should be instilled within us all, so we can make logical, well-thought-out decisions and improve the emotional welfare of others, as well as ourselves.
QRTA members have enjoyed activities such as a guided tour of the new Queen’s Wharf building, while the next outing saw us viewing old Newstead House, enabling us to compare how things have changed in our great city of Brisbane. The latest activity was to the matinee of the stage production of Jesus Christ Super Star.
I hope to see many members at the coming activities. Members, please check the newsletter for details here.