my book on patience

You will be rewarded for your patience and understanding. I read that and smirked. I felt like it would become my motto. I also felt like there were going to be a few things that I would need to learn to understand. And it would take patience to understand those things. How could it be that the fortune in that little cookie could put in to words what I was feeling better than I could?

Months later:
Success will come with patience. I read it and had a little smirk on my face. “Yeah, I know,” I wanted to tell the cookie. I could write a book on patience.

Patience is waiting. But waiting with a purpose. Being anxiously engaged in life without being preoccupied with the desired outcome. Making goals and dreams about said outcome, but not letting it take up all of your time. Patience is letting what will come, come, and not complaining about it. It’s optimism. It’s hope. It’s having a smile on your face even when your life feels emptier than it has ever been. It’s faith that your future will be better than the present and anything that the past had to offer.

It's knowledge that you can't control everything. It's accepting that fact and then doing all you can to control at least some things.
 
It's being 24 years old in Utah and unmarried but convinced that life has never been better. Ever.
It's doing nice things for people who don't really deserve it and waiting for them to realize it.
It's being a friend to someone who isn't a friend back.
It's teaching my mom how to upload pictures onto facebook.
It's understanding that people don't always act the way you want them to but loving them anyway.
It's explaining something ten times without getting angry.
 
I may not know a lot of things but I do know a thing or two about patience. Yes, I may roll my eyes every time I hear someone say that all I need is patience and good things will happen. But deep down, in my optomistic soul, I believe it. Patience will solve all of my problems.
Because I have faith in what God has promised me for my life.
 
So here I am. Patiently waiting for my future to stop being such a mystery, for a friend to act like they are truly my friend, for my prince to come, for the snow to melt, for the semester to end, and for my happily ever after.
 
Yay patience.