I saw the following quote in a post titled, “The Power of Patience” on Tuesday2’s blog. It’s a quote from MJ Ryan’s excellent book, The Power of Patience.
The quote is at the beginning of a chapter called “It will turn out…” In that chapter, and throughout the book, MJ offers such helpful perspectives and ideas about persistence, perspective, wisdom….and patience… patience to realize that “it will turn out”….patience to learn to develop trust in the emergence of “a good outcome”…
Patience tends to be one of my “lesser developed” qualities…in other words… “patience” is a challenge for me. In this case, I’m trying to learn to develop patience about, and faith in, the emergence of a good outcome….
Once I have an idea of how I would like things to be…an outcome…. I like to work hard and have it happen fast….quickly….as soon as possible.
But of course, life often doesn’t work that way….life situations and adjustments evolve…they seem to take time, persistent effort, evaluating, reevaluating, adjusting, adapting, flexibility, shifting… ohhhhh my goodness….not my strongest qualities….but learn-able, I suppose….
MJ expands on these ideas…here are some excepts from that chapter, “It will turn out.”
And so as each one of us faces changes….which of course, life is full of….hopefully we’ll each find workable and useful strategies…for me that will involve shifting out of the structure, purpose and meaning of teaching school….into….I have absolutely NO IDEA what…and I’m REALLY nervous about that….well, I suppose…I can learn….and we can all learn…
to try as much as we can
to use our energies and strengths in a productive and helpful manner…
to continue to engage and contribute in whatever ways we might find….
to try to find ways to do that…
and to develop faith in a good outcome…
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As MJ writes….
to nurture that faith…
“it will work out…”
May we all learn, grow and develop the willingness to work hard
and to have faith that it will work out….
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Some advice I received, a few years ago, from a friend…
advice that I had put on this same background photo…
advice that supports these ideas…
advice that I hold dear to my heart…
link to smaller version of the page: pdf “Precious and meaningful opportunity”
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Next Day Note: I just saw the movie “Salmon Fishing in Yemen”…I thought it was a really good movie and it’s this idea…exactly…they even use the same word “faith”….in a positive outcome, in the movie that would be the unlikely prospect of getting salmon into a river in Yemen.
Added a bit later: Another wonderful post I saw a few days ago…“it will be okay”….(from a very special blog named “I stop for suffering”)… wonderful, concisely written ideas….for those times when forward progress gets stalled…I made a screen capture of that post, printed it out and it’s beside my bed now, to remind myself of those ideas…I thought that it was that helpful.
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Added a few hours later…Marie’s comment reminded me of a “patience” page…advice I received several years ago and made into the following page in June, 2011…..developing more patience is an ongoing endeavor… : ) Note: I see that it’s that same photo background, again! I seem to use that photo, without noticing when else I’ve used it…a soothing image when trying to gently reassure myself about a potentially difficult challenge…
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Pocket Perspectives 
Well said. Indeed, faith gives us the strength to believe and remain steadfast ESPECIALLY when things do not turn out the way we think we want. the challenge is, of course, to remain patient and steadfast knowing that God will see us through whatever we face. Great post!
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thank you….I’m trying to “teach” myself this very important concept…or at least nurture myself along with the ideas… I hope some of the “pages” and ideas might resonate, or be helpful, to some others, too.
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Kathy, Very well done. Patience is not one of my virtues either, I want things like…now! 🙂 However, I too am working on this and think I have gotten better. I am working one one one with one of the authors of The Healing Codes and the virtue I have to work on is “‘patience” for the healing of my hearing challenges. Isn’t that amazing? By the way, I took a nap yesterday, and felt myself sighing, and in the back of my mind I had a sense I was healing. When I woke up, I had regained some of my hearing. 🙂 Now I can hear music again even if I still have less hearing.
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Oh Marie, I’m sooooo happy to hear that….that is sooooooooo hopeful…my goodness..might that be ..”faith in a good outcome”???…that it will work out?… : ) And oh, that is soooooooo wonderful that you can hear music again…so so so so wonderful! You’re in my thoughts…and Jampa’s too….he’s putting very much positive energy into wishing for positive developments for you too….
and patience….ah…yes, patience….slowly, slowly…. or at least that’s what I’m encouraged to learn/live/accept… : )
ps….I just added an older “patience” page to the bottom of the post….ahhhhhh, patience
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The challenges you mention of being patient and waiting seem the most difficult for me…and occurs so many times through out life! Always good to have you visit…
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Yes, they’re difficult for me, too…I guess it’s reassuring to know that each of us is not alone in this particular challenge of patience and waiting… one might think that with all the practice I’ve had with varying life situations, I might be further along with this….but…ah, there I go AGAIN…with a bit of imapatience about learning patience! 🙄 …wow…still learning : )
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🙂 I agree…
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Well done! Love it~
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Thanks…it sure expanded!… btw…to others…Tuesday2’s blog was where this all started….thanks!
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Yes, that’s a difficult one. Because it doesn’t happen quickly! But it sounds like you’ve got some good ideas about how to start, if not where! Thanks for sharing your resources!
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: ) …well, I’m developing “faith in a good outcome”…but since I don’t quite know what that outcome might be, I suppose that I can’t really take steps toward “it”…back to the drawing board??? guess I’d better come up with some ideas about possible or potential “outcomes”…. ; ) Happy to share…this one’s a “work in progress”…that’s for sure…
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Reminds me of the old joke “Dear God please give me patience. and I want it right now”. heh heh. It’s difficult, at times, to allow life to unfold and yet, it does that on its own,doesn’t it?
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That’s funny…that describes me!…. oh, it’s hard to wait for life to unfold….but I suppose, yes…it does do that…
And Joss…strangely enough, we went to a movie later this afternoon…Salmon Fishing in Yemem….a very good movie!…and the theme within it was “faith”…faith in a positive outcome…over and over again….wow…that hawk/eagle message thing…I was stunned by the overlap with what I had spent much time today on…faith in a positive outcome…faith in what a person is trying to do….really I was amazed!
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This is wonderful, thank you 🙂 ♥
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You’re very welcome. It’s kind of remarkable how little seeds will sprout…and one of the seeds for this post was the seed that you planted with your own post… “it will be okay”….thank you again for your ideas and, even more so, for your kindness.
(for others….a link, again, to that post….”it will be okay”… http://istopforsuffering.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/it-will-be-okay-7/ )
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I am going to share this with a friend. Thanks, Kathy.
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I hope it helps. I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea since yesterday…and I think, for me, it might be helpful to come up with several, or more, varied potential positive outcomes and to create and take steps toward those….odd, this is what I do for a job…but harder for my non-professional life.
Another idea is that if we expand how we look at outcomes and decrease “preferences” for only certain outcomes, then that opens things up.
We went to Salmon Fishing in Yemen last night…exactly this idea of faith in a good outcome…perfect for encouraging this outlook.
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Yeah! It worked; I found this on Pinterest! 😀 Have fun with Pinterest! It can be addicting.
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Wow…I did it! Thanks for you help, Shelley! How intersting and special that the first person to ever sign up for PP (you!), also walked me through the steps to share the pages with more people!
And, uh ho….a new addiction for me??? Well, now I won’t have to worry about finding some other good outcomes….I can just hang out in Pinterest! : )
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What I am taking away from this wonderfully helpful post right now is this: Keep making the dots in faith with warmth, love and gratitude. Patience will result. Hooray!
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Yes, maybe that’s it…even if we don’t know where things are going..and of course there is no way to really know that…to continue to make those “dots”…with warmth, love and gratitude…yes….and developing patience and trust to have faith that it will lead to positive…ahhhh, patience…
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