Patience

Impatience is underestimating germination time. I came up with that aphorism twenty years ago during my second year of teaching when I began noticing my students making perceptive comments that could be directly linked to learning experiences they had had the previous year. Oftentimes, the learning experiences had been ones that I had been assuming had not produced the kind of learning I was hoping for because there is no obvious immediate result. But a year later, a student makes a profound observation rooted in that experience.

I went hiking in the redwoods last week. A related aphorism about patience rose to mind. Patience is not passive acceptance. Patience is mindfully planting the seeds. Passive acceptance is not planting the seeds.