For several years now I have been aware that my next big challenge in the world of self-development is going to be patience.

I am an Aries: impulsive, creative, the “big idea” maker of the zodiac. We specialize in inspiration without follow-through and the Aries is the most intense “want it NOW” personality of all the zodiac signs.

I need to learn patience.

Part of this is learning to go with the flow. To take things in stride and to make expectations solely on yourself, not on others.

Though I do not consider myself to be an ANGRY person per se, I do tend to get miffed rather easily.

I am now embracing this challenge (almost wholeheartedly) on my learning path and have begun making subtle changes with the reading of The Anger Diet by Brenda Shoshanna.

After only two chapters, the subtle differences in the way that I process information and emotion have allowed me to free up some of my energies for more pleasant, joyful and constructive mental and physical activities (such as writing.)

My anger response is happening slightly less often than it used to, and I do calm down just as quickly and easily as I get upset. Nevertheless, this is a destructive (rather than creative) behavior and does little to help in the process of raising my energies to an ascended level.

So I say again, I need to learn patience.

For me, at this moment, it is about realizing that an idle mind is an easily mis-directed mind. (Forgive any resemblance to that “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop”-type of Puritan adage.)

But for me, when something begins to bother me that is simply not of any consequence and I begin to feel myself getting uneasy or unhappy about it, I am trying more and more to ask myself “What could you be doing with this mental power instead of approaching anger and shouting?”

Inevitably I realize that I could be meditating, I could be writing, I could be making that long-overdue grocery list or sitting down to pay the bills.

And what will it achieve if I get angry over something that, if we all look at our trigger points, is inevitably outside of our own personal control?

What will be the outcome of screaming at the neighbor for his barking dog, or getting outraged at your roommate for their 4-hour a day telephone addiction?

Simple, it will result only in lowering the vibration of your energetic environment and dissipating your own personal energy, leaving you without the fire and inspiration that you may need to get you through the remaining tasks of your own day.

So the most immediate remedy, beyond acceptance that you cannot control all things at all times, (For this is without doubt the main object of the waking Ego.) is to give your mind something of value to focus on, to pour these heightened energies into.

Patience being a process, you can start out with something big to focus on and work your way down to only the tiniest of redirections.

I begin with things that I wish to manifest in my life, in a form that I find easy to focus on, whether a written paragraph or an image, photograph etc.

Carrying this item with me in a pocket or tucked into the back of whatever book I may be reading can provide me a focus point when I begin to feel my “anger reflex” being tickled by some situation or person that I encounter during the course of my day.

Why waste energy on something that you DON’T REALLY want to manifest when you could channel it directly into something that you REALLY DO want to manifest?

Eventually I hope to work my way down to a point where I can simply and easily accept a situation for what it is, ie. beyond my concern or control, and just automatically redirect my mental and emotional energies to a more pleasant aspect of the same situation.

When two people are fighting on a park bench while I am trying to read nearby, I will someday hear only the birdsong in the tree above them.

I am by no means suggesting that I have the market cornered on what to do about anxiety, impatience or anger but I certainly feel like I am beginning to move in the right direction.

And that is all we can best expect of ourself on this journey of life.

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