Water is excellent at hurrying up and waiting. It carves entire canyons with devastating slowness. Over millions of years, water doesn’t choose between speed and patience. It uses both. It works moment by moment to create something extraordinary in the long run.
We resist this duality. Although our bodies are 103% water (or whatever that stat is), we don’t have millions of years to carve a fucking canyon. We crave quick wins, cling to the comforting illusion of waiting for the right time. Instead of embracing the daily labor that could bear fruit years down the road, we fixate on shortcuts or fail to act altogether.
But powerful forces in our lives, like compound interest, skill mastery, deep relationships, and meaningful work, demand that we hold urgency and patience together. These forces require us to move relentlessly in the present while trusting that greater rewards will unfold with time.
In a world that offers instant gratification aplenty, choosing patience can feel irrational. Almost irritating when it feels more like inaction or complacency, rather than a deliberate choice to unlock greater opportunities and flexibility over time.
But patience can help you strike when the moment is right. It teaches you to earn what you want and sets you apart from others who want the same but won’t put in the time or effort.
Many systems we’re part of (whether it be a society, economy, or company) transfer prosperity and opportunity from the impatient to the patient. Those willing to delay gratification, to endure and invest in the slow, meaningful work, reap rewards the restless cannot.
Like the person who plants the tree so others may someday sit in its shade, those who know how to delay gratification may find fulfillment at the destination, but also on the road thereto.
“There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto.”
~Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (Book)
“We who cut mere stones must always be envisioning cathedrals.”
~Quarry Worker’s Creed
