The idea of patience has been at the top of my mind recently.

There are a lot of skills that really support the achievement of success. But a lot of those skills are replaceable with another apt skill. You dont have to be a high-stakes risk taker to be successful (even if it helps), you can replace knowledge with presentation skills, you can replace sales tactics with genuinely creating a great product. But no matter what you do – whether that is doubling the effort, creating a lean system with maximum efficiency or creating multiple streams of products – there will a come time when you just have to wait. Just have to simply wait no matter how much you want to rush ahead. That waiting is a process of coming to the same rhythm as the life around me – matching the harmony of life, matching the rhythm and beat of life.

The rushing part that I identify in myself is some form of a “wounder achiever” that thinks healing must be earned through accomplishment. That if I get far enough, fast enough, the ache will disappear. Its some quiet voice saying “If I just do more, fix more, succeed more, I’ll finally be safe again”. Some part of me begins to confuse stillness with powerlessnes. In reality, its just a way to avoid feeling the emptiness and the lack of control on natural processes. After the breakup, its also a way to avoid the loneliness. So, then the speed to the goal becomes an armour: “If I become impressive fast enough, no one will see I’m broken.”

In reality, healing doesnt happen by skipping chapters. Rather, I must learn to read these difficult chapters slowly until they lose their sting. That’s one of those quiet truths I am understanding while living through enough pain, loss, and waiting. There’s nothing that replaces patience. I can distract myself, push harder, overthink, plan endlessly but life still unfolds at its own rhythm.

The healing is coming for me by looking at time differently. Being present while something unseen is forming and trusting that time isn’t empty, it’s active. Learning that the universe has the capability to transform me in the pauses too (despite how they seem frustrating, still, uncertain – or maybe becuase of it). I don’t always need to burn down my life to grow a new one; sometimes the transformation happens in staying.It is evolving from learning that I dont need to force transformation but rather allow transformation.

And this brings me to three different types of patience:

1. Emotional patience — learning to sit with uncomfortable feelings without trying to transmute them too soon.
2. Mental patience — learning to keep faith in my purpose when daily life feels small or repetitive.
3. Spiritual patience — learning to trust that timing is divine, not personal.

In fact, all grown is just about reacting differently to the same stimuli. And growth of that kind is success.

Success for me cannot be some physical or material thing. It cannot be ‘situational’. Because any actual achievement (career, fame, wealth) seems dull in comparison to my idea of success in my head which is a state of inner success. For me, that looks like steadiness, doing meaningful work, centred, respected, having integrity (matching my outer actions with inner values). That person (that future me) doesnt rejoice in success (much less chase it) but finds that success comes naturally to him. Someone determined, with a vision, focused, and calm but passionate. Success then is just emodying success.

Emodying success means developing an ability to hold that success without sending my nervous system into a frenzy. No self-sabotage, shrinking, or overworking the moment things go right. Just feeling safe in the abundance. Being seen, admired, and still stay relaxed inside. Climbing a mountain without immediately looking for the next one. Not confusing peace with boredom. An affirmation tip i got from ChatGPT : try saying “I don’t chase success. I create the conditions where success feels safe to stay.”

One aspect of embodying success is also learning the responsbility to hold the desire of wanting without needing to be relieved of it. That really is patience. When I want something — money, fame, success — the first impulse is to get rid of the wanting. So I chase the thing, not just because I want it, but because I can’t bear the feeling of wanting itself. Desire burns. It creates tension in the body. It exposes where I feel incomplete. The real magic would be when I become expansive enough to contain longing without collapsing into it.