I decided to explore the nature of patience a bit more, when you should be patient, when you shouldn’t, when it’s advisable, and when perhaps a little hot headed decision making does a world of good. Keep in mind that whatever you read here should be applied to yourself, don’t try to follow others to the letter. Being somewhat impatient has worked for me, but may be a bad move for you.
I actually agree, patience is a virtue, if all of us were patient, level-headed people the world would probably be a better place. However we might not have companies like Microsoft, Google, we might not have gotten to the moon and so on. It is in this light that I rephrased the saying to stress that patience itself is not the virtue, it’s knowing when the time is right to be patient and when it is right to be impatient.
In the rushing world today, many times we don’t have the luxury of patience. There were a few occasions when I wanted to write about a web service, but I decided to wait until they developed more. A week later I see Lifehacker had covered it. If I had covered it before, perhaps they would have found the service through my site and linked to me, which means a lot visitor-wise.
Let me show you another example. Many times I come up with an idea and I simply have to develop it that day. I stay up all night, perhaps coding the site for it or something, and a day, or a week from then, I decide it’s not worth pursuing. If I would have thought it through before and if I’d have been patient, I could have worked on something else, and perhaps I could have been a lot more productive right?
Sort of… What if that idea was actually a really good one? Then developing it right away is a great decision. I may have wasted my time, but eventually I’m bound to find the right one for me, so overall, if you look at long-term productivity, the decision to not be patient may have been a good one.
On the other hand, many times patience can come to your aid. Not selling a bond when you catch sight of the recession may make you richer when the market booms again. Not publishing that article on that good looking new web service may be a good idea, since maybe it turns out to be a spam site?
In the end patience is a trait and a personal preference. I am not a patient person, but I can force it upon myself if I see the reason. In some cases being patient paid off, but in others, not being patient paid off as well. therefore I think knowing when to be patient is the virtue, not patience itself.