If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear. (Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Pooh's Little Instruction Book by A.A. Milne)
What is patience? Is it a child who doesn't have temper tantrums, who does all the things grown ups say, whose spirit is utterly squashed as she waits to be noticed and listened to with love and empathy? There is nothing admirable about temper tantrums - how childish - but patience, the virtuous kind, must be born out of self-sacrifice. The patience that A.A. Milne speaks of comes from the wisdom and compassion that is learned when we start to see life from the other person's point of view. That's being childlike, not childish.
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