Clutter in the office - “The past is never there when you try to go back. It exists, but only in memory. To pretend otherwise is to invite a mess.”Lorraine Hansberry wrote a play called, "A Raisin in the Sun." In that play a sister is completely out of patience with her brother. He has been so disgusting in her eyes that she never again wants anything to do with him.
But her mother is wise. She tells her daughter that the time to love somebody is not when they have done well and made things easy for everyone. The time to love somebody is when "he's at his lowest and can't believe in himself 'cause the world done whipped him so."
She is telling her daughter that there is a time to patiently bear with another. And especially when that other is hard to love and angry because "the world done whipped him so."
Patiently bearing with another is not the same as allowing yourself to be abused. There is certainly a time to say, "No," especially when someone's behavior is destructive. But there is also a time for understanding and patience. It has been said that patience is the ability to count down before blasting off. And an old Chinese proverb has it that if you continually grind a bar of iron, you can make a needle of it. All it takes is patience.
If there is a time to call it quits, is there also a time for patient understanding? Is there someone who may need you to bear with them a little longer?
From Lifesupport.
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