The patience circle

Shaykh Muhammad Al-Shareef talks about a patience circle.  On the board, he draws a circle that contains all the things that we have patience for, like missing the bus, losing a pen, some things not going as planned, etc.  They're different for different people.  He represents all these as X's inside our patience circle.  Then, there are things that we have a difficult time being patient for.  These are X's outside our patience circle.  

From time to time, we will be tested with those things outside our patience circle. If we try really hard and are able to be patient with these things outside our patience circle, the patience circle grows -- so those X's that used to be outside are now inside.  Conversely, if we're not patient, the patience circle shrinks and even those things that used to be inside, may now fall outside the patience circle.