Aristotle once said that “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

Although he didn’t have to deal with sluggish Wi-Fi or face lengthy traffic jams on the freeway, I’m sure Aristotle’s time shaping medieval scholarship lent to many opportunities for patience-building.

I can just picture the influential ancient Greek philosopher eloquently penning his work by dim candlelight, attempting to solve all the mysteries of science and psychology, only to eventually crumble up his papers and storm out of the room after growing impatient from a lack of problem-solving.

We chuckle at that visual because it’s relatable. Aristotle’s likely struggles behind the desk certainly ring true for us today.

Fast-forward about 2,400 years and those same crumbled-up papers have been replaced with annoyances vented to a spouse, frustrations emailed to a colleague, irritations texted to a friend and other grievances that we take out on others.

Impatience comes in many forms, often hurting ourselves and others in the process. Even trivial aggravations can come at the expense of internal peace, leaving us distressed or distracted.

Most of us would probably agree that patience isn’t the most favored of character traits. We often avoid opportunities to improve our patience when it comes to engaging with difficult people, facing challenging situations or pursuing long-term goals.

Aristotle was right: Patience is bitter. But image if he ended the quote there: “Patience is bitter.” Well, that’s not very inspiring, is it? Instead, he finished his age-old tenet by adding the simple profound phrase: “But its fruit is sweet.”

In other words, patience is difficult, but the results are truly worthwhile. Perhaps a shift in perspective about this pesky character trait can help us turn abrupt reactions into healthy responses.

When our patience is tested, let’s aim to embrace the challenge, lean into the discomfort and take time to learn how to respond better. Most importantly, however, we also need to give ourselves a little grace to grow.

If Aristotle — one of the world’s greatest scientists and philosophers — grew impatient while, say, inventing the scientific method of analysis or establishing the principle of inductive reasoning, I think we can cut ourselves a little slack when we have to deal with a slow driver or two on the way to work.

In the end, our character will ultimately be influenced by our response to either embrace patience or evade it.

I like to think that some of Aristotle’s most famous works regarding poetics and metaphysics were perhaps buried among that big pile of crumbled-up papers, but ones that he eventually picked back up and unraveled thanks to a choice to embrace patience.