Patience, personality disorders, and the meaning of life…

Tuesday, December 5 2023. This one is for S, and farmers everywhere….

One of the most telling signs of a dark and dangerous personality is a profound lack of patience.

Lacking patience, humans with personality disorders find it hard to difficult to feel satisfied in their both their work and intimate life.

A lack of patience foments a surly restlessness as these humans move from one partner to yet another, or one sexual encounter to another. They’re not commit fully to their work with a clean heart. Instead… they scheme toward petty and insular goals.

Here’s the rub. If you aren’t committing to meaningful work and meaningful relationships with other humans, it inevitably becomes quite difficult to find any meaning in one’s life.

The virtue of patience enables humans to endure difficult situations without being aggressive — something that dark personality types often cannot seem to manage.

Only a tiny fraction of Americans are true Psychopaths.

They identify themselves in particular, by their high impulsivity, often acting without thinking or seeming to be able to control themselves.

The study’s authors discuss their findings:

“Psychopathy features impulsivity, antisocial behaviors, and lack of empathy; those who score high on psychopathy scales are prone to seeking thrills.”

I’ve had a few on my sofa from time to time. The narcissists are far more common. Our culture is teeming with them.

Similarly, narcissists find criticism very difficult to deal with — they hold grudges, and will lash out…

The study’s authors explain:

“Narcissism refers to a feeling of grandiose self-worth such
that those who score high on narcissism often appear dominant and egotistical.

Narcissists commonly experience feelings of superiority over others and can be quite aggressive when they sense that their self-esteem is under threat.”

How the study was conducted

This is an odd little study, with perhaps little to recommend it cross-culturally.

The most curious part of the study is how they operationalized patience by invoking patient and passive Buddhist principles.

The study surveyed 434 humans working for a Chinese firm. All of these humans asked about their patience, as well as how much meaning they experienced in their lives. They were also surveyed to reveal any dark personality traits.

People with any of the so-called ‘dark triad’ of personality traits of psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism had low levels of patience and experienced reduced meaning in life.

The authors opined, that in Chinese society, that there are three critical ways to find meaning in life:

“…the first is “creating a work or doing a deed”, which is supported by the finding that meaning is positively related with work engagement; the second is love, which is supported by the finding that meaning in life has a significant positive correlation with nourishing relationships; and the last is enduring unavoidable suffering…”

This Chinese study veered in a surprisingly spiritual direction. The researchers actually discussed the importance of patience within Buddhist thought.

Just to bring this discussion up to speed, Buddhism defines patience as involving 3 particular aspects of patience.

“The first is the patience to endure suffering, willingly, namely to accept both mental and physical suffering with gratitude.

The second is the patience to not retaliate against harm, namely to withstand harm caused by others, and respond with forgiveness and loving-kindness rather than anger or hatred.

Third, the patience to thoroughly scrutinize phenomena, namely to bear with uncertainty and insecurity, and to see things as they truly are…”

Final thoughts

This is a fascinating topic. How does patience, or the lack of, shape a sense of meaning and purpose to one’s life?

It also makes me wonder if this therapeutic perception of patience as a social good has a dark side?

At the end of the day this was a Chinese study with a questionable design.

And, frankly, there might be a hidden reason for the research emphasis on the culturally prominent virtue of patience.

But in China, is patience synonymous with submission, and a refusal to retaliate when harmed? It sure looks that way.

When I was in school for my Labor Studies degree, I learned about how academic research is heavily politicized. But in my MFT program, the academic approach toward research was more accepting and far less skeptical.

Is to “see things as they are” in China, a gateway into “enduring unavoidable suffering?” And would other cultures agree with the researchers that “enduring unavoidable suffering” is a reliable pathway to finding meaning in life?

The Chinese people are suffering to such an extent, that their patience has been tested, and found them publically displaying their enduring suffering by “lying flat”, or how young Chinese are engaging in a novel, less-ambitious mindset.

Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.

RESEARCH:

Wang, J., Li, T., Wang, K. et al. Patience as a Mediator Between the Dark Triad and Meaning in Life. Applied Research Quality Life 14, 527–543 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9627-y