Impatience

When we lose our patience, we make rash decisions that can leave us shaking our heads in hindsight.

This can happen with projects that we’ve been working on (i.e., rushing to finish it), or when we’re buying something. Of course, we make decisions out of necessity too. Sometimes things cannot wait, and we have to make an immediate decision. But in cases where we have time and there’s no urgency, a rash decision can lead to a regret later on.

I remember making rash decisions when buying something that I later found cheaper somewhere else. Most of the time when this happens, it’s because I’m in a store and I don’t want to spend time searching for it elsewhere (or for it to be shipped if its a product online).

But it could be argued that impatience can be a reward. There was an occasion when I was buying something online, and because it was on sale, I bought it instead of waiting for the price to go down. Albeit, it went down a little bit a day later, the price jumped up dramatically some days after that. Sure, I could’ve saved a little bit of money if I waited a day or so, but if I had waited longer than that, I would’ve had to pay a lot more. And in some cases, an item might be sold out if the opportunity isn’t taken to buy it.

So I think there is something to be said of both patience and impatience. We often praise patience because it’s associated with prudence. Of course, there are many things we shouldn’t be hasty about, especially major purchases or life-changing decisions. But quick decisions can be necessary when patience causes us to miss out on opportunities. And if we just wait and wait and wait, we end up not making any decision at all.