“Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” ― Joyce Meyer

You need enormous patience when you want to turn your life around.

Patience
Each success seems so far away that it’s almost unattainable. Each milestone gives you joy for just a brief moment, because you realize there is a lot of similar milestones ahead.

Continuous effort is needed if you want to succeed on a journey. Your heart will ache for relief, but for a long time any relief seems far beyond the horizon.

Three years ago I began to believe that I could actually achieve something significant. A lot has happened since that time. I’ve bought a house. I sold our apartment. I became a writer.

Yet, my life stays strangely the same. My source of income is a job which doesn’t fulfill me and is a huge strain on my family life. Day by day, I interact with the same ‘negative’ people who don’t see anything wrong with slaving away their lives for the benefit of the company’s owner.

I made a huge leap from the employee mindset into entrepreneurial mindset, but my everyday life doesn’t look very different yet.

I still dream about financial independence. Rationally, it’s no closer than it was 3 years ago. I earn about 40% more, but the new mortgage is more than 300% higher than the previous one.

I dream about changing the world, but I haven’t yet managed to transform my personal economic situation. I am like that parent in a plane who needs first to put on his oxygen mask before attending to his child. I need first to take care about my financial status and secure a passive income before I will have enough freedom to try something really big. That’s beyond frustrating. That’s infuriating.

However, I know I am on a journey which will get me there.

Quitting my job will be one of the key initial steps on the path that will see my life purpose accomplished.

I feel as if my life has stalled; I feel as if I am in slow motion. Each second seems to drag and drag, lasting longer than the previous one. I desperately want to force this step. I’m impatient.

Three years have passed and it seems I’m no closer to achieving this vital step.

It’s a question of perspective

I have come a long way. Everything I have today and everything I am today just didn’t exist in any range of possibilities I had in my mind on August 8th 2012.

I do grumble about how long it will take till I finally pay off my mortgage. If my book royalties remain at their present level (but they are highly volatile), I could pay off my mortgage in 15 years. That is, if I use all royalties for that purpose. And I can’t. I need to reinvest in my publishing business. Family brings its demands, too. My wife expects some compensation for all the time I spend on my business instead on spending it with our family.

Therefore, at the present, I can only make extra contributions to my house debt that roughly equate to a second installment of capital every month. This means (if nothing changes), I can expect to be free from the bank in about 20 years.

However, if I hadn’t started my writing career, our family wouldn’t have a house in the first place. And without my making these additional contributions we wouldn’t pay off the mortgage until I was 70. With that perspective, 20 years doesn’t seem too long at all.

I yearn to quit my job and become my own boss, but without the shift in my thinking I would simply have stayed working for a boss another 31 more years before retirement would have released me.

Thanks to my writing, we are already less dependent on our other income sources. I could replace my wife’s salary from my royalties. If I was laid off today, we could still afford to pay the monthly mortgage installment, and we wouldn’t starve.

I’m no longer concerned about paying bills. I know, if laid off, I could find a similarly‑paying job within a month. I have just done so, in fact, changing one job for another with slightly better conditions. There is demand for my role. Even though I don’t want a corporate job, I have made sure I have the skills to get one for as long as I need one.

Nevertheless, I struggle with my attitude. I want to change the world; I don’t want to go to work every day, or worry about mortgages.

How can I stick to my grand vision, when there are 15 more years of paying mortgage ahead of me?

The quality of question you ask determines the quality of your life

The time will pass anyway. I need to pay the price for electing to walk a ‘normal’ road for a decade. It’s a miracle that I’m already in the top 15% authors in the world, as I published my first book only two years ago. In January 2014, I sold 197 copies of my books and I was stoked. They all were priced $0.99, but I earned 2% of my salary! In April 2015 I sold almost one thousand books, half of them at $3. I earned 62% of my salary. Who knows what will happen next year or what I will earn ten years from now?

The right question to ask is how could I NOT stick with my grand vision?

What’s the alternative? Here it is: I could work 9 to 5 for the next 31 years, and complete paying off the mortgage when I turn 70.

A small shift in perspective, makes my approach obvious and my answer clear.

My resolve is strengthened.

Ask the right questions. Believe in your vision. And develop an attitude that appreciates and understands the importance of patience.

Patience

2 thoughts on “Patience

  • August 11, 2017 at 9:50 pm
    Permalink

    Thank you for sharing your journey with all your struggles. I like your point that it’s better to choose our own path than simply wait for retirement. Most people waste the best years of their lives behind office desks. It’s kinda sad. I feel inspired by looking at your page. It makes me believe that working persistently and patiently on your goal brings you closer to it. Thanks!

    Reply
    • August 12, 2017 at 8:31 pm
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      That means a world to me. Thank you for commenting.

      Reply

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