If I were a superhero, I would be Patience Man.
Superman has an S on his chest, Batman has a bat symbol, Spider-Man has a spider…and I would have a big “P” on my chest.
Besides representing “Patience,” the “P” would also signify “Powerful” and “Perfect.”
Since every superhero has a catchphrase, I will also have mine. It will be, “Let’s see.”
I have figured that this is the most patient sentence in the English language – it keeps hope alive, but avoids commitment.
For example, if Rekha asks, “Do you think we should invite my sister home?”
I can say, “Let’s see,” and give her hope without committing to anything.
Now let’s try and understand Patience Man a little better.
Every superhero has one special ability – Hulk has limitless physical power, Spider-Man has spider-sense, Thor has Asgardian god-like strength, and Iron Man has technology.
Similarly, I have god-like patience, even as life humiliates me all around.
This may not look like a superpower to an outsider, but ask anyone who knows my wife and me, and they would agree that with the ‘patience power’ I have, I could be the leader of the Avengers team.
I don’t know when I became so patient – did Rekha marry me like this, or did I become like this after marrying Rekha? The lines have blurred over the years.
Nowadays, by the time Rekha finishes explaining why I am wrong, which I patiently listen to, even I start feeling bad for Rekha for having married me.
But the patient me has hope that someday I will become a perfect husband and Rekha will have no complaints.
As a superhero called Patience Man, I fight many supervillains such as Restlessness, Frustration, Nervousness, Anxiety and Greed. And regularly, the most dangerous villain of all – Impatience.
If you have been married long enough, you know that many marriages have cracks in them – not because the husband was wrong, but because he had the temerity to reply immediately.
The wife might have casually said, “You never listen,” and the impatient husband would have immediately replied, “I do listen.”
That’s all. Chapter finished.
But if Rekha had told me, “You never listen,” I would let the sentence enter through one ear, let it cool down in the empty space inside my head, and then formulate a safe reply.
Something like, “Maybe you are right. I should listen better.”
But I would utter it with a smile on my face and in an acceptable tone. After all, 93% of communication is non-verbal.
Rekha usually works from home, but once a week she loves to dress up, come to my company’s office and work from there. Last week, when we were driving back home, she asked me, “Do you remember what I told you yesterday?”
Now, an ordinary man would panic, but we are Rajans…we are superheroes.
Without taking my eyes off the road, I studied her face from the corner of my eye, her tone, the time of day, and how she held on to the side door to help me drive the car safely, and then said, “I didn’t like it, but you were right.”
This is a beautiful sentence – it means nothing, but it makes your wife feel that she has the upper hand.
The sentence has two parts – “I didn’t like it” and “but you were right” – and each part plays its role.
There is no way a husband is going to like what his wife has said, so when I used “I didn’t like it,” it confirmed to Rekha that I knew what she was talking about. And when I used “but you were right,” I conveyed to her that I was a mere citizen in her kingdom and I had accepted her as my Queen.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how this superhero, Patience Man, wins the day. Basically, using his immense patience, he decides to lose today to win another day.
Patience is one of those few superpowers that comes with additional superpowers. For instance, hope – patience is always accompanied by hope.
While a restless person thinks, “Nothing is happening,” a patient person thinks, “Something may happen.”
A restless person thinks, “This is over,” while a patient person thinks, “Let me wait and see.”
A restless person thinks, “Why am I not successful yet?” but when you are patient, you don’t give up easily.
But don’t get me wrong…as Patience Man, it is not that I just wait, hoping for things to happen. That’s not patience…that is laziness.
Patience is doing what you can do today and not going mad because the result has not come by evening.
Over the years, I have figured that my superpower also protects me from greed. Greed is a clever supervillain, and like Satan, it doesn’t have horns and a tail, but comes in a suit with impeccable English.
It almost always says, “Bro, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
But Patience Man immediately becomes suspicious. In my experience, two things are true about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities – a new one comes along every week, and they are always in a rush to sign you up.
As you can imagine, this superpower called patience has helped me keep Rekha close to me, despite her finding fault with everything I do. This superpower may not help me fly like Iron Man or explode through walls like Hulk, but it helps me show up with a lot of hope every day. That someday, I may become that perfect husband Rekha wants me to be.