![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/satellite.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe patience of Job; the patience of a saint; a \u201cfruit of the Holy Spirit\u201d; a virtue. \u201cHe that have Patience, can have what he will,\u201d predicted Poor Richard\u2019s Almanack way back in 1736.<\/p>\n
As you might expect from that august build up, a lack of patience has also been associated with societal rot and slippage by people from a truly wide variety of perspectives. Comedian Louis CK mocked people who are upset when their cellphones\u2014which make use of satellite technology\u2014don\u2019t work by asking, \u201cIt\u2019s going to space! Can you give it a few seconds to get back from space?!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The appropriate answer to the comedian\u2019s rhetorical question is, \u201cWhy should they?\u201d Impatience with poorly functioning technology is one of the things that creates intense market pressures for companies to deliver ever better service at affordable prices. Patience in that case is actually the friend of mediocrity and stagnation and frustration.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a reason for this seemingly incongruous result, and it\u2019s that patience is not a virtue. You may have heard it called that, but here\u2019s the actual list of the 7 virtues. First the three theological or heavenly virtues:<\/p>\n
Then the four cardinal or moral virtues:<\/p>\n
Check them again, if you like. One word that is strikingly absent from the list is \u201cpatience.\u201d Patience is not a virtue by definition, because virtues are supposed to be always good, and patience is not always good.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t make patience a bad thing. As a discipline, patience can calm our nerves down. As a strategy for conflict, patience often pays off, with celebrated results.<\/p>\n
\u201cOld Hickory said we could take \u2018em by surprise \/ if we didn\u2019t fire our muskets till we looked \u2018em in the eyes,\u201d sang Johnny Horton in \u201cThe Battle of New Orleans.\u201d The mid-20th Century ballad commemorated America\u2019s most decisive victory in the War of 1812.<\/p>\n
Whether or not \u201cOld Hickory\u201d (General and, later, President Andrew Jackson) ever said those words, that\u2019s the general sense of his leadership in that battle and it was reflected in the actions of his troops.<\/p>\n
The patient, almost laserlike marksmanship of backcountry Americans with long rifles proved decisive in that battle. The British had superior numbers and greater firepower but that just made for more targets and a whole lot of battlefield salvage.<\/p>\n
Yet as the song also hints, waiting patiently was only part of what won Americans the battle and might better be viewed in this case as a subcategory of prudence. It made sense not to waste scarce ammo until it could be used to really count. It also took another bona fide virtue, courage, to hold the line in the face of a superior force and drive them back.<\/p>\n\t\t