My experience with addictions and overcoming them may parallel some of your life situations. While still being addicted I would think about quitting the addictive substance, such as caffeine or alcohol. Then I would look for a small advantage, such as no drinking for one day, and when that was accomplished, I would let up on my vigilance and go back to a cola or a beer to celebrate. By looking at my small victories I was preventing the job from being done thoroughly. When I developed infinite patience with myself I turned the whole thing over to God and remembered how perfect God had always been with me, even in my lowest moments. By being infinitely patient I could see that toxic substances interfered with my highest purpose and life mission, and I left those addictive ways behind me.
Make no mistake about it, all my thoughts about quitting, all my trials and failures—those “small advantages” as Confucius calls them—were part of the process of purification. By being patient with myself I could stay patient even with those small victories, and thus they did not deter me from my greater accomplishment. I allowed the process to move at its own pace, and today I can see clearly how getting rid of impatience gave me the ability to move to a level that I never imagined when I kept congratulating myself for my little victories and then retreating back to defeat. If you are appreciating the paradox in this situation, you will enjoy these two paradoxical sayings: “Infinite patience produces immediate results” and “One day at a time produces eternal results.”
To see the absurdity of impatience in your life, set your watch ahead several hours and tear off several months on your wall calendar. Then see if you have advanced time! The failures and frustrations, along with the immediate successes, are a part and parcel of the perfection of it all. By observing nature—your nature and the natural world around you—you will see that you must allow a wound to progress at its own pace; to eat a fig you must first let it flower, put forth fruit, and ripen. Trust in your nature and let go of your desire to have things done quickly.
To accomplish this:
Abandon your conditioned means of evaluating yourself as successful or not on the basis of immediate indicators. If you have a knowing within that you are on a much higher mission than what might show up today, you will free yourself from the folly of those current results. To be ahead in the beginning of the game can be a big disadvantage if it obscures your vision for the entire game.
Think about what you are doing in increments of five centuries rather than five minutes. Produce for those of us who will be here five hundred years from now and your emphasis will shift off of your immediate results to much greater affairs.
Be as patient with yourself, through all of your successes and disappointments, as you feel God has always been with you. When you can turn a problem over to a higher authority to which you are connected, you immediately shift to that knowing state of infinite patience, and you stop looking for little indicators of success for today only.
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