Patience is a Virtue

What if the difference between failure and success is your ability to wait? When you start to get impatient you rush and make mistakes. But if you take your time you are able to complete things with easier and better results.

The Tortoise and the Hare by Aesope is a great example of patience. The two animals were competing in a race to see who was the fastest. The swift Hare was cocky and overconfident in his skills, he believed the slow Tortoise would never catch up to him. This led to the Hare taking a nap midrace, since he believed the Tortoise would still be far away by the time his nap was over. But that was a very bad idea. The Hare did not take into account that he might not wake up in time. While the Hare was napping the Tortoise was able to catch up and even surpass the Hare in the race. He might have been slow but he never gave up, the Tortoise kept pushing on. By the time the Hare woke back up it was too late. The Hare only awoke from his nap because of the uproar of applause from the spectators of the race. That’s when he realized he lost the race because he was impatient and arrogant.

A time I had to be really patient was Christmas Eve of 2024. This was around the time I really wanted to change my hair. So I saved my birthday money so I could change my hairstyle. The style I wanted was a balayage, and after saving up enough I was able to get it. A balayage is a technique for highlighting your hair. The style of highlights can range from chunky and thicker highlight strands to more thin natural looking highlights. Your hair type and color can and will affect how long a balayage takes, typically it is an hour and a half to three hours. Like how dark your hair is, the thickness of your hair, and the length. It also depends if you are doing highlights from your roots, a quarter from your roots, or even if you are doing it half way down your hair. These are all things that factor into timing.  My hair stylist had only done it three times previously and with how dark and thick my hair is, mine took a lot longer than three hours. It took five and a half hours. I went in at noon and left a little after five thirty. While she was doing my hair I obviously couldn’t move around and do much. I barely could look at my phone because she was doing smaller highlights for my hair which took more foils and sections. And after all of that I had a Christmas party to go to. So my mom and I left straight from the salon to my Mimi’s house for a Christmas party and dinner. So while my hair appointment took longer than I thought it would, I was glad I did it and was patient enough to sit through it. The results were definitely worth the wait.

Don’t rush life and don’t take things for granted. You should take things slow and enjoy it. If you rush you could miss something whether that is a beautiful memory or fantastic opportunity. Like with the Hare he decided to rush ahead and he lost because he got tired of waiting. He rushed instead of taking his time. With me, I waited patiently for the results of the hair I really wanted. Be patient, take things slow. After all, what’s the point of rushing? You have a lifetime to complete goals, which means you don’t have to rush or try and force results. The result might come slowly but it wouldn’t change much if you got them sooner by rushing. Live your life to the fullest, but don’t rush.

“Clock on East Montague” by North Charleston is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

“pocket watch.” by LichtCatchingToby is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.