Image Credit: Rolling Stone

If you’re a proper fan of music, I’m sure you’ve had beef with at least one of your favourite artists for not releasing new music when you wanted it. Kanye fans are no different.

Kanye’s 10th studio album, “Donda,” came out this weekend. 26 tracks and 30 features, including Shenseea and Buju Banton. After a half a dozen different release dates and three different album listening parties, we’ve finally gotten our hands on the album. 

Donda should’ve come out in July of 2020. That’s more than a year ago, so it’s been quite a wait. But, the album was arguably a masterpiece. I enjoyed all 26 tracks from start to finish – features and all. Very much worth the wait, in my humble opinion.

If you’re a Kanye fan or know anything about him, he’s had a history of being late for album releases. And every time he’s late, we forget he was late the minute we press play. I feel that’s probably the case for many other fans, even if you aren’t too keen on Kanye West.

I know the minute Rihanna or Frank Ocean drops an album the masses won’t even remember they were late. I know I wouldn’t. 

The bottom line is ‘good things come to those who wait’. And I’m not trying to convince you to sit and wait over a year for the new job, car or anything else you’ve been trying to do. I’m just saying a little patience wouldn’t hurt. 

Listen to whoever said patience is a virtue

If you never quite understood what ‘patience is a virtue’ means, it literally means that being able to wait for something is one of the best qualities you can have.

It’s hardly a common quality among us as people – especially in a world that seems to be moving at the speed of light. And it’s especially hard to listen to anyone saying ‘patience is a virtue’ when in the same breath you’re hearing ‘time waits on no man’. 

The angel on your shoulder might tell you to wait, and the other guy would tell you to get up and go. Who do you listen to? I personally think you could do both. But listening to the first guy can really help you out.

Patience teaches you that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to when you want it to. Things take time. Waiting a long time for what you want to happen doesn’t always mean it won’t. It just means not right now. 

Being patient teaches you self-control and endurance. And you know I love a good quote. So I’ll tell you that the race isn’t for the swift, but those who can endure it. Life throws obstacles in your way all the time, and patience helps with that. It helps you to understand that setbacks can happen, and that those setbacks don’t mean you should give up or forget your goal. 

Patience teaches you that setbacks mean ‘it’s gonna take a little longer than expected’.

Know that patience means ‘until’ and not ‘instead’

Being patient doesn’t mean you aren’t being productive and you’re waiting for fortune to fall in your lap. It means you know what you want to happen for you and you’re not going to make a huge fuss about it not happening now. You’re willing to trust the process to see it happen. You can even do something else while you wait. So you’re listening to the angel, and the other guy at the same time. 

Look at the one year wait for Donda. I personally didn’t fuss about it. I just watched the headlines pass me by. Of course I really wanted to hear the album, but it was no use complaining about it. Kanye wasn’t going to hear me. Even if he did he would only release it after he trusted his own process and thought it was ready to be heard.

In the meantime I listened to other albums of his and of other people. It doesn’t mean I didn’t want the album anymore. It just means I was willing to do other things while I waited.

I’ve even been in this situation while job hunting. I knew the kind of job I wanted to do, but I knew it wouldn’t come exactly when I wanted it. So, I did other things in the meantime. I still knew what I wanted. I was willing to wait. But for me, waiting didn’t mean wasting time. It meant staying occupied until I could get the kind of job I wanted.

Patience means doing something until, not instead. 

Good things will come if you wait

Patience is the best way to avoid self-sabotage.

When you’re patient you won’t feel the need to force things to happen or give up when they don’t. Sometimes when we’re too eager to get something we want we do things that would make our wait longer or kill our chances all together. No, there’s nothing wrong with applying a little pressure. But learn how to gage the pressure.

Pressure can make a diamond but pressure can also ‘buss pipe’. Patience will teach you when to apply pressure and when to ease up to let things take its course. Too much pressure could destroy the same thing you were trying to build. So learning patience and endurance can teach you to use pressure to make diamonds instead of destroying your good good pipe. 

Patience is incredibly hard to learn and put into practice. Look at what I did. Instead of getting frustrated over Donda, I listened to Jesus is King and College Dropout until Donda came out. So, don’t get frustrated about what isn’t happening now. Exercise some patience and do something else until it happens.