Patience is a virtue. Most people have heard this at one point or another, usually in the midst of a crisis. Patience is, in many ways, the first step towards understanding that by living in the moment, we can find harmony in the world around us. Fighting upstream against a situation leads to very little, save for the constant feeling that we are making zero headway.
This is not to say that we wait around and hope that everything turns out OK. Optimism is one thing. Optimism without any perspective is what one regular at the Retreat calls Disneyism. Patience means understanding the flow of the universe, living in the here and now, and being able to perceive the right time to act. By waiting for a situation to unfold, not worrying about what MAY happen, we are able to concentrate on what CAN happen and inevitably what WILL happen.
The counter point to this is the tendency to wait around until a solution falls into our laps. Like many things in the modern world, swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction from a hectic control based to sitting on top of a mountain watching as the world goes by. While this is a possibility and used by hermit and master alike, it does mean you have chosen a specific path.
Patience is flowing with the stream of life, letting it carry you to a solution, being flexible in the expected (or wanted) outcome.
Xiong Nai Xin Retreat 
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