Sometimes when speaking Mongolian I don't know how to say complex words. Recently one such word was "patience." As I often do, I combined words I did know how to say to talk around the word I was thinking of, "It's like waiting," I said in Mongolian, "but being happy while you wait."
As I said this to Tunga, who immediately caught on and said the Mongolian word for "patience" which I promptly forgot, I thought about how much I liked that definition. I grew up learning that "being patient" was something I had to do until I got what I wanted. "Be patient," someone older would say. "Yeah, okay, as long as you give me that Egon action figure afterward!" I would patiently retort. This new definition of mine doesn't fit that though. Being happy while you wait isn't about getting what I want at all, it's about being happy with whatever I have. Egon or not, maybe patience I think doesn't come from a store. Maybe patience, perhaps, means a little bit more.
