Patience?

Recently I've discovered that while I can be patient about some things (children [for the most part], other people's choices that don't really affect me, the weather, etc.) there are some things that I most definitely need work on--for example: people's choices that do affect me, knowing what I'll be doing with my life in the next few months or years, keeping certain comments to myself that I really want to say but maybe the time isn't right.

Yeah...that last one.  I tell myself at night before I go to sleep that there are certain things that I will or will not say, that I will or will not be the first person to say something, and yet it seems that promptly after I've made that decision, I'm placed in a situation where I break that decision I made to myself.  Why? Because I'm not patient enough with myself, with timing, with the natural flow of things.  A poster-child for this problem I have would be like when I'd really wanted the job at Meadow and I told myself I wouldn't talk about it.  Did I talk about it? Um. Yes. I did talk about it and what happened when I didn't get that job? I had to eat my words and be humble.  And not just any kind of humble--I was compelled to be humble which is so much harder.

I'm afraid to pray for patience because then life gets really hard and I'll get lots of wonderful opportunities to practice it but it will be so hard.  So I'll try to practice patience with the situations I have now: getting a job, going forward in life, what to do each day and sometimes not feeling productive, dating, writing, building new friendships with people.  That should be enough room to grow in patience, right? Let's hope so.