Patience
Patience can be regarded as a decision-making problem: Eat up all the grain
today, or plant it into the ground and wait for it to multiply. Unfortunately,
human beings evolved not as farmers but as hunter-gatherers, and have a strong
tendency to discount long-term rewards. Even in pre-modern, pre-technological
times, the "egocentric predicament" made it difficult to exercise
patience. Being both useful and difficult, patience is often thought of as
a virtue, but it can also be understood as a complex of virtues including self-control, humility, tolerance, generosity, and mercy, and is itself an important aspect of other virtues such as
hope, faith, and love. Patience is definitely a virtue. It is a
quality that allows a person to act more beneficially on their own behalf, and
on behalf of others. Impatience can lead to impulsive acts that often cause
harm and unforeseen consequences. Patience allows one time to consider the
possible outcomes and ramifications of any actions being considered. Patience
also enables a person to keep working toward a goal that would be impossible to
achieve if they were not willing to keep making an effort over an extended
period of time before reaping their reward. Patience is necessary for most
people to learn new things, as no one gets everything immediately or on the
first try. It’s also required when teaching other people. Patience with other
people is also a necessity in order to be kind and compassionate in many cases.
“Trees that grow slow bear the best fruit.” It
is a very nice quote that means we should be patient with everything and in the
end, we will appreciate it.