Patience and Punishment

On some days our physical and mental mood makes even serious problems seem solvable, while some days, some nights, may make even lesser problems seem more serious. We change much in our feelings and reactions from time to time. There is much in the mind, much in the spirit, much in the indefinable mood of the moment. Sometimes irritations irritate more. We sometimes keep our tempers and hold our tongues and sometimes let them loose. Something said at one time will pass with good humor, which at another time will cause offense. The same comment which at one time will bring laughter, will at another time turn to tears. Such are the variabilities. And it isn’t only words that make the difference. It is who says them, and how, and when, and what we feel. In sorrow problems are likely to seem even larger than they are, and people are likely to lose perspective⎯all of which points up to the importance of patience, of understanding, and of sensitivity to the feelings of others, and sensitivity to situations. This also suggests that we shouldn’t punish others for what really is within us. When a child does some harmless but irritating act, when we are tired and tense we may give way to hard or cutting words, or punishment far beyond what would be called for. The time, the mod, may dictate what is done, quite apart from what it was that triggered our temper. And so children sometimes suffer for our impatience rather than from their own errors. This all suggests restraint, self-control, temperate consideration in all circumstances, and meeting problems with patience. And striking at a child in anger, whatever else it is, must be a mark of immaturity. “No man is free,” said Epictetus, “who is not master of himself.” And no man is mature, he might have added, who punishes others for his own impatience. And as to children: We should hold them more accountable for their own errors, and less accountable for ours.