The Stoic Practice of Patience
Hospitals are made of waiting. Waiting for a doctor to make rounds, for a test result to come back, for a mother’s breathing to even out after a restless night. The hours stretch and bend in odd ways. Days lose their shape, and with them the sense of routine that usually steadies a life. In these places, impatience often comes first. It’s that urge to will things forward, to force clarity, to find answers that simply will not arrive on command.
The Stoics did not count patience among their four cardinal virtues. Yet it lies within them all. Patience is the courage that endures hardship without losing hope. It is temperance that reins in anger. It is justice that waits to judge. And it is wisdom that discerns what cannot be rushed. To practice patience is to practice all the virtues at once.. Not passively, but as an active strength in the refusal to be ruled by time’s uneven pace.
