The mental attitudes of intolerance and impatience take an enormous toll on all of us. Residing in these closed and rigid postures, we resent the situation in which we stand, and that resentment undermines flexible points of view from which we might engage the world effectively. When impatient or intolerant, we diminish ourselves and others by inhabiting a rigid smallness of mind. The perfection of tolerance includes a patient willingness to accept present reality as the point of departure for transformative work in the world. The patient person is content to be wherever he or she is right now, no matter what this situation happens to be. Contentment in this case is not letting go of effort and striving; what it releases is the struggle, the unnecessary conflict that stands in the way of lucid assessment and sustained conviction.