Patience

Be patient.

Patience is construed as a personality trait and a psychological state. We would describe someone as a patient person, and we would also say "people are waiting patiently to enter the polling station" (where "impatient" people can wait patiently in specific scenarios).

Studies to investigate how to develop or train patience have been scarce. Psychologists found that the state of patience is related to how long one believes one has to wait in a specific situation. If someone has estimated that it will take three hours to wait in line in order to buy a newspaper, three hours will not be perceived as long (although he/she normally becomes irritated when the cashier is slow when he/she buys it in 7/11). Moreover, if one is absorbed in a task or one's attention is engaged during waiting, time seems flowing more quickly and hence increased patience. However, if the waiting time is longer than one's estimation, or when someone is always checking the time during waiting, or if one experiences frustration during waiting (e.g. a man cutting the line), one becomes less patient. Nevertheless, the person may still increase patience by using emotion regulation techniques such as changing expectation and searching for reasons to understand why people could not have finished earlier.

In other words, practising mindfulness so that one can be absorbed into the moment, and learning to extend empathic understanding to other people may help to improve one's patience.

Hongkongers have been notorious for being impatient. During the pandemic when we do not have any estimation about when it will end, together with financial strain, family conflicts ....

But in fact, HongKongers have been very patient。Hang in there。

Reference：Schnitker, S. A. (2012) An examination of patience and well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(4), 263-280.