Patience

What Patience brings to inquiry

At the puzzle club, a player begins explaining why the blue token moved. You hear “I put it there because…” and supply an entire theory of cheating. They finish: “…the table was wobbling.” The token is supporting a leg. Your theory has been standing on less.

This is an invented illustrative scene.

Patience leaves time for an account to become intelligible. A pause, an awkward order of telling or a missing detail may call for a question. It is also an opportunity to let the person finish what they are trying to say. In a story, the writer may deliberately delay an explanation; in conversation, someone may simply be finding the words. Attending through that interval helps you hear information that your first interruption would have displaced.

Patience gives a worthwhile inquiry continuity. You can hear the route by which a detail became relevant instead of collecting disconnected answers to your own questions. The completed account may reveal a question you would not have thought to ask.

Waiting can be active. Reread the paragraph before the puzzling line, let a consenting speaker complete a thought, or return to a puzzle after a break. Time serves understanding when you use it to attend; it becomes mere delay when there is no purpose left to serve.

Finding the balance

Give an account time in proportion to what understanding it requires. A welcome clarification can serve that purpose as well as a silence.

In ordinary life

An uneven recollection

Let a friend finish a harmless story before asking which event came first.

A slow reveal

Notice which question a mystery has left open, and let the next chapter supply its own answer.

Nearby virtues, different work

Perseverance

Patience allows the process time; Perseverance returns to worthwhile work when it becomes discouraging.

Self-Restraint

Self-Restraint checks the urge to interrupt; Patience remains receptive during the time that follows.

Recognizing a counterfeit

Passive drift counterfeits Patience when waiting becomes an excuse for overlooking the account. A player can reasonably finish a sentence; a clear misunderstanding can also reasonably be clarified. Patience gives a process needed time rather than declaring every delay valuable.

Cultivating Patience

• Leave a short silence after an answer.
• Ask a clarifying question about the account actually given.
• Agree a stopping or returning point for a voluntary discussion.

Try it today

In a willing conversation, let one account reach its natural stopping point before offering your explanation. If you need to leave or the other person wishes to stop, respect that and return only by agreement.

On another occasion, notice whether a short clarifying question helps the account more than additional waiting.

Questions worth returning to

• What became clear after the speaker finished?
• Is this waiting helping a worthwhile process?

Choose your practice

These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.

Quotations and further reading

Seven readings, one for each day. All remain available here. Historical arguments and fictional dialogue are identified in their source notes.

1. It teaches us to be forbearant towards those who differ from us, provided they observe patiently, think honestly, and utter their convictions freely and truthfully.

   Samuel Smiles · Character
   CHAPTER V.—COURAGE.
   Samuel Smiles · 1871 work; Project Gutenberg 2541 display edition

   Smiles describes a benefit of scientific culture: patient observation and honest thought make disagreement bearable. The passage supports giving another reasoned account time to be heard.

2. Who almost is there that hath the leisure, patience, and means to collect together all the proofs concerning most of the opinions he has, so as safely to conclude that he hath a clear and full view; and that there is no more to be alleged for his better information?

   John Locke · An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II
   3. The ill consequence of this, if our former Judgments were not rightly made.
   John Locke · Project Gutenberg 10616 display edition, described as based on the second edition; Books III and IV

   Locke asks us to notice the time and means inquiry requires. An incomplete account can reflect those limits rather than deception.

3. … we listened in silence to the strange story which our visitor detailed to us.

   Arthur Conan Doyle · The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
   IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB
   Dr. Watson, narrator · 1892 collection; Project Gutenberg 1661 display edition

   Watson describes receiving the visitor’s narrative in “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb.” Listening lets an account become available before its significance is decided.

4. At the same time, in the difficulties that now beset us, I could hardly feel justified in refusing to listen to her, if she was really bent on speaking to me.

   Wilkie Collins · The Moonstone
   CHAPTER XVI
   Franklin Blake, quoted by Gabriel Betteredge · 1868 novel; Project Gutenberg 155 display edition

   Blake says he could not justify refusing to listen, yet continues playing billiards and hurts Rosanna. The scene distinguishes making time in principle from actually giving a willing speaker your attention.

5. When I made any remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw the whole case clearly, and often made me see it more clearly than I had done before.

   Charles Darwin · The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
   Preserved darwin digital edition, paragraph 103 (zero-based capture index)
   Charles Darwin, describing Charles Lyell · Project Gutenberg 2010 display edition of Francis Darwin’s edited 1887 autobiographical text

   Darwin remembers Lyell staying with an account until he understood it. The next sentences describe objections and continued doubt: hearing the whole case does not require agreeing with it. This replaces a jury adjournment whose surrounding fatigue complicates the charge of impatience.

6. … he felt that he had been unjust in giving so scornful a hearing to any one who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours, to speak to him.

   Elizabeth Gaskell · North and South
   CHAPTER XXXIX. MAKING FRIENDS.
   Narrator, describing John Thornton · 1854–1855 serial; 1855 book; Project Gutenberg 4276 display edition

   Thornton recognizes that his scorn shaped the hearing he gave Higgins. Giving an account time requires attention from the listener as well.

7. … the patience to bear and forbear, to listen without retort, to refrain until the angry flash has passed.

   Samuel Smiles · Character
   CHAPTER XI.—COMPANIONSHIP IN MARRIAGE.
   Samuel Smiles · 1871 work; Project Gutenberg 2541 display edition

   Smiles describes an interval before retort. The inquiry benefit is hearing the completed account; the passage does not require enduring harm or suppressing a necessary objection.

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