If I ask you to give me only two words that define the way you live, what are they? I choose Love & Patience – two powerful forces that shape how deeply we connect, grow and excel on this adventure called life. Love fuels our actions with purpose, turning even routine tasks into meaningful pursuits. From love we develop passion, drive & creativity to actually live, not only exist.
But anything worth achieving, or having does not come easy. That is why we also need patience, perseverance, and the will to keep going. No matter what obstacles are thrown our way, challenges and adversities we face in life. Applying these two basic principles, let’s call them qualities, and life might even become bearable.
If you believe in something with every fiber of your being, that passion & drive becomes your fuel. It drives the grind, the late nights, the relentless push forward. Without it, what’s the spark? Every decision dissected, every skill learned, every setback turned into a lesson.
Eventually it all becomes worth the push, when you’re building toward something real. There has to be a silver lining down the road, if you have that inner fire of showing up, day after day.
It is not only about wishing it into existence or having passive daydreams. It’s about channeling that belief into disciplined action. Planning, executing, adapting to every situation, until the path clears itself through sheer momentum.
Lost society
Sometimes it feels like we’ve lost both love & patience for life – as the relentless acceleration of modern life keeps us constantly occupied and “connected”.
Up until the early 2000s existence moved at a human rhythm, unburdened by the constant ping of notifications or the pressure to perform for an invisible online audience.
People often describe this era as a “golden age” of normalcy, where meaning wasn’t manufactured through algorithms but emerged organically from shared, unfiltered experiences.
In the pursuit of finding balance between today’s fast pace and living in the present moment, we can look back not to romanticise, but to rediscover ourselves.
Instead of reacting, let us try to respond. In the words of Peter Crone:
“Triggers are gifts. Life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you are not free.””
Crone’s philosophy centers on the idea that triggers, or intense emotional reactions to people, events, and situations aren’t random annoyances but deliberate signals from the subconscious. They point to “invisible prisons” like fears of inadequacy, feeling unsafe, or judgment that keep us from true freedom.
Integrating the patience to stop for a second, breathe and identify these triggers is a virtue that requires a lot of love for oneself. This might just be the hardest thing in the world sometimes, accepting ourselves, even our dark side or shadow as Jung would call it.
Suffering comes from resisting reality – judging events as “wrong” or clinging to past stories that make the present feel unsafe. When adversity hits, we run because we’ve pre-wired ourselves to believe something’s broken.
These “programs” are often rooted from childhood triggers like inadequacy or abandonment. But pausing to accept “what is happening right now” flips our reality. Essentially nothing ever really goes wrong in our lives, it is only our negative perception of the situation.
I am not saying struggle is not real, that devastating events like ending a long relationship, getting injured, fired or even losing someone we loved – are something we should just power through. Sometimes it really does seem like life is not fair, but that is the reality we live in.
Are we lost?
If you think about it, right now is the best time to live. We can learn anything at the click of a button, connect with anyone in the world instantly, build a business out of the comfort of our home.
But here lies the conundrum of our behaviour – the word comfort. There is an easy way out of every problem, shortcuts to health and happiness are advertised on every corner.
And this is where life loses its meaning. How do you even know what happiness and joy is? If you are trying to skip the hard stuff, running away from adversity and numbing the pain with endless pursuits of pleasure.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”— Ernest Hemingway
The fight or flight system wired back in the deepest part of our brain is always trying to keep us “safe”, even though there is no immediate threat. Our brains are trying to calculate the worst possible outcome, so that we are ready to flee in the case of it actually coming true.
The truth is though, most of the time there is no immediate threat. We might even make up stories in our heads, totally unreasonable ones that make our heads spin around themselves. That is usually the main reason why we can’t fall asleep, even wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back into dreamland.
We wake up in the morning and instead of looking within ourselves, having that first sip of coffee in silence, we check our phones. Immediately getting bombarded by information from all over the world, as well as seeing how great other peoples lives are on all social media platforms available.
We run around all day, sometimes like a headless chicken. Always in a hurry, as if our lives are at stake every single moment. Thinking about what other people think every step of our journey.
Distraction is the new norm – endless scrolling, checking for news, notifications disrupting our meals & conversations.
The solution
Love & patience. Constantly coming back into the present moment. “Easier said than done” – does not even begin to cover it. Going through hard moments while facing adversity, we are prone to run away from ourselves, and the present moment.
Reminding ourselves that the worst of times in our lives are here to build character. Just as there is no light without darkness, there is no joy without struggle, no pleasure without pain.
As Alan Watts illuminates in his teachings on the shadow – the hidden part of our psyche that we desperately try to deny. Buried deep in our subconscious, there are constructs & truths we do not want to accept.
“The shadow is not a mistake. It is not something broken. It is the part of you that carries the key to your real purpose.”
We flee from it, while waring our masks of approval and perfection, only to deepen our sense of not being good enough. The universal truth is though: “Light without shadow does not exist. They are two sides of the same coin. And so long as we try to deny one part of ourselves, we will always feel incomplete.”
Ask yourself “What does this reveal about me? What is this feeling trying to tell me?” If you can answer this question, the wound transforms into a gift. The wound is where the gift grows from. Integrating these fragments, not suppressing them. That is how we evolve into the person that we always wanted to become, feeling more whole.
No longer half-alive, we begin to live fully.
When we accept our darker sides, those feelings of anger, fear, and envy. Instead of pushing them away, we start to see the full picture of who we are. Light and shadow, or if you want to call it darkness, go together. We can’t have one without the other.
The key is to face our adversities it head-on during tough times. When jealousy or frustration hits, stop and think: What is this telling me about my own needs or goals?
That shift turns problems into opportunities. For example, anger might highlight what we care about most, and fear could show us where we need to grow. By working through these, we build real character and find meaning in the pain.
In the end, staying present isn’t about fighting everything – it’s about accepting it all. That’s where real patience and self-love start to grow, turning hard moments into chances to get stronger.
