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 St. 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 on these words often since we went into quarantine back in March and all in-person classes needed to rapidly shift online, 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. Navigating this brave new world of COVID is no exception. I know how to complete all my daily tasks normally and in-person; I should be able to do so immediately in a virtual space.
I asked my students at the beginning of this semester what they’re 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. I then realized that I needed to reflect on my answer to my own question—I needed to find patience with myself as I practiced to become better at navigating the cliché “new normal.”
We are about a third of the way through this strange semester, and I have found more patience with myself by remembering that despite the masks, the six feet, and the computer screens, 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 St. 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…”
While we may have settled into a new-normal routine, 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.
Margaret E. Ayala, MFA
Assistant Professor of Composition and Rhetoric
Director of First Year Writing
This reflection originally appeared in DeSales Weekly, the e-newsletter of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
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