Different Kinds of Patience

It is said that patience is a virtue. But what kind of patience?  You can be patient when waiting for the right job to come along or patient when waiting for the bus. You can be patient with a dog that is disobedient or patient with someone who talks too much. You can have patience to go over your paper five times before turning it in or patience to explain something five times to a student. You can have patience when recovering from a surgery or patience with a screaming baby. It's really a very broad term with so many applications. 

From a personal standpoint, my patience has a lot to do with age for some reason. I have no patience with young children. Crying, whining, fighting just once can put me over the edge. Even if it's kids I know well, I can't be patient with them at all and just grow incredibly frustrated. But for some reason, when it's older people like a friend or grandparent, I have no problem with any of these same things. Friends can fight and I can patiently mediate the situation. Someone can cry or whine about something and I can listen for hours. My grandmas can make me move the glasses that aren't in the exact right spot or make me drive her all around town and I will calmly do these things without agitation at all. And I have no idea why this is. I know many people that are the complete opposite and can deal with much more from children than adults.

This is just something I've been musing over this week and thought I'd share my thoughts. What is patience? Why do I have more in some situations than others? This is what my crazy mind does during the day haha.