Jamaica Holiday or PATIENCE

I have finally, finally, finally finished the UFO from a Dale of Norway pattern called "Jamaica."  As you saw in my last post, there were issues with the project.  It seems that every step had some type of slow-down complication.  That hex persisted until the end. 

The collar and button bands were tedious and only took three tries on the front band to find the appropriate number of stitches to pick up per rows of knitted fabric.  The magic number for me, using smaller 2.0mm needles, was pick up one stitch in each of three rows, skip one row, pick up one stitch in each of two rows, skip one row and repeat.  Of course I tried two different versions and ripped them out until I found this ratio that produced a nice firm fabric.

Then, I bound off around the neck and down both button bands using a two stitch I-cord bind off.  This gives a nice finished edge, I think. Despite the style these days, I do not like button bands that droop significantly lower than the back of the sweater.  (Guess I sound like an old fart, don't I.  Sigh.  I never thought my life would become one of an old fart.)  The I-cord prevents stretching of the button bands, but it seemed to take forever and ever.

The keyword for this project has been PATIENCE.  And, of course, perseverance.  But above all, patience.  I wonder how I ever developed the patience to keep working at a project over the years and not abandon it.  My husband loses his patience, on my behalf, when he sees me rip out knitting and attempting to re-design something.

In education/teaching circles, I know there is a lot of talk about developing patience in kids; maybe they don't use this word but the concept is the same.  Kids are short on the attention span and short on patience.  I'm not saying that I am a model of the patient human.  Rather, I often have a short fuse in the anger department, and I am very impatient with other humans who don't seem to work effectively or who thwart my progress--on anything.  But, give me a project (most projects that is) and I will keep at it until it is fairly well-done and complete, even if I need to re-do things repeatedly.

Is this patience or is it something else?  Refusal to give in or give up?  Not wanting to "waste" money by throwing away an incomplete project?  Anything else?

How do you define patience?  And how did you learn to have patience?