Ah, an interesting topic for this week’s fortune cookie musing.

Sorrow, as most of you have probably experienced, is a very efficient coping mechanism for many obstacles life may pose as you try to go through a normal routine. Perhaps things have not been going the way you had wished or intended, or you feel some sort of disappointment in someone else, or are experiencing someone else’s disappointment in yourself.

Perhaps you have been struggling on a day to day basis with a loss, or a disability or condition that may impact your quality of life as you see it.

Sorrow, additionally, is a way to describe your state of mind. If I were close friend greeting you on the street and asking you how things were going, if you were grieving or feeling sorrowful you might say something like, “oh, I’ve been feeling sad lately Randy, I can’t seem to get out of this funk”.

If sorrow is a coping mechanism, then perhaps patience is a coping mechanism for the actual coping mechanism! (Last time I’ll use the phrase, I promise)

Try to imagine the same situation. You are sad, and I happen to ask you how you are feeling.

“Hey, how have things been going lately?”

“Oh, I’ve been feeling sad lately Randy, but I’m sure that things will be looking up soon if I wait for them.”

Behaviors that come with sorrow may include things like guiltiness or insecurities about things that were previously unimportant to that person. While patience might not necessarily eliminate our sadness, I wonder if it truly has the potential to not only alleviate it, but make for a stronger sense of self during that time.

It is possible that patience changes sorrow in a sense, in addition to addressing the causes of sorrow that sorrow itself could not actually deal with.

Changing the focus of whatever the issue might be may form an entirely different concept of sorrow to begin with. I’m suggesting something where sorrow ceases to be an emotionally taxing experience, and becomes something of a searching and strengthening period through patience.

Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that people should completely eliminate their capabilities to feel sadness, but rather use this example as a solution in difficult situations.

The power of patience to serve as a healing tool I believe comes from its ability to smooth out the wrinkles from overly complex situations that might not even make themselves clear. Time is always said to heal most wounds.

Allowing yourself the time to separate from the irrationality of a difficult situation may give the time necessary to piece it together and form logical conclusions.

Hopefully, after forming these conclusions, the actual reality, as far as you can determine, can then be accepted and dealt with through sorrow. It might, as the fortune suggested, only make the burden lighter, however every little bit will always help whenever you might be in need.