How patience can be a better balm for sorrow than resilience 

by ParentCo. May 13, 2016

Resilience is the fashionable prescription for trauma. But bouncing back is not the only – or best – way to bear sorrow.

Patience, in its original meaning, was a virtue that enabled a person to overcome his suffering and, in some sense, enact understanding in the face of the faults and limitations of others. Patience today might conjure a sense of inactivity, a feeling that it’s about more or less waiting for things to pass. Consider, instead, the term patient. As an adjective, it is the quality of a person who is able to overcome and demonstrate understanding towards others. As a noun, it is a person who is in need of understanding and, specifically, medical care.

Source: How patience can be a better balm for trauma than resilience | Aeon Essays


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