Margaret E. Ayala, MFA, Assistant Professor, Director of First Year Writing at DeSales University
Margaret E. Ayala, MFA
Having been a member of the DeSales University community my entire adult life—first as a student, then an employee, and now as faculty—I’ve accumulated my fair share of Salesian paraphernalia. Every morning while I wait for my coffee to brew, I blearily blink at one such piece of paraphernalia hanging on my kitchen bulletin board—a bookmark with a quote from Saint Francis de Sales:
“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instead set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.”
I’ve found myself thinking about these words often, especially the first part of the passage: “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.” I will be the first to admit that when trying something new, I want to fully understand it and instantly be great at it.
I asked my students at the beginning of the semester what they are great at and if they were immediately great at these things the first time they tried them. I was answered with heads shaking the obvious “no.” All skills and talents take practice and patience to master, and that was the point of my question. It was then that I realized I needed to reflect on my answer to that question—I needed to find patience with myself as I practiced to become better at navigating teaching in a post-pandemic environment as it continues to evolve and it is ever clear that our once “normal” will forever be part of the past.
I have found more patience with myself by remembering that despite the changes, we are all trying to figure this out together and don’t always have the right answers. We are all looking to each other for guidance when we are trying to master newness in every facet of our lives and perhaps forgetting to be patient with ourselves all the while.
I still blearily blink at Saint Francis’s words every morning while I wait for my coffee to brew, but now my focus has shifted to the second part of the passage, “Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections…”
Let us remember to practice that all-important patience with ourselves and others. Courage exists in all of us and we can use that courage to embrace and challenge our imperfections, and to remember to begin each day and task anew.
