✍️ By Riaan M. Odendaal | The Daily Verdict - 30 June 2025
I used to think patience was about waiting.
About sitting still while life happened around me.
About being good at doing nothing
until the right moment arrived.
But I watched my son learn to walk.
He didn't wait for walking to happen.
He fell. Got up. Fell again.
Each tumble teaching his muscles
something they couldn't learn from standing still.
Patience, I realized, isn't passive waiting.
It's active failing.
It's the willingness to be terrible at something
long enough to get better.
To fall down today
knowing you'll try again tomorrow.
To stay in the messy middle
where nothing feels like progress
but everything is changing.
We've confused patience with resignation,
with accepting things as they are.
But real patience is rebellion —
against the voice that says quit,
against the timeline that says you're behind,
against the lie that growth should feel comfortable.
Patience is not the absence of urgency.
It's urgency with wisdom.
The kind that knows
some seeds take seasons to grow,
some skills take years to master,
some hearts take decades to heal.
My son walks now.
Not because he waited for it,
but because he was patient enough
to keep falling forward.
That's the gift —
not the ability to wait,
but the courage to keep failing
until failing becomes flying.
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