Is patience a waste of time?

This is a report of the philosophy café session on 17 February 2010. The question for the evening is: “Is patience a waste of time?”

What is patience? An online dictionary defines it as: “suffering delay, pain, irritation etc quietly and without complaint”. What is waste? The definition is: “fail to use [blank: which we fill with the word “time”] fully or in the correct or most useful way.”

Consider gardening. We cannot do anything but wait for the plants to grow. Not true, we have to add fertilizer, water the plants etc. Consider construction. Things must move according to a determined timeline, waiting for events to move according to this timeline cannot be considered “waste”.

So it is not waste if there is a result. If there is no delay, patience is not called for.

What about patience as a virtue? Even if there is no result, character building can occur. This makes patience not a waste of time.

Hence:
If (either result or character building), then not-(waste of time); and
If not-(either result or character building), then (waste of time)

Patience is considered a virtue because we do not know the future eg. a farmer waiting for his plants to grow. Anything can happen.

We suggest a metaphor. We lean a ladder against a tree (apple, pear etc) to pluck its fruits. If we lean it against the correct tree, and get the fruits, it is not a waste of time. If we lean it against the wrong tree, and do not get the fruits, it is a waste of time. But what if we carry the ladder into an orchard, and do not know which is the right tree, leaving us no choice but to try many trees, is that a waste of time? Well, in the same way as Edison discovered many ways in which electricity cannot generate light, we gain knowledge by climbing up many wrong trees. Since our patience in climbing many wrong trees allows us to gain knowledge, it is not a waste of time.

Gaining knowledge is not character building. It is a result.

What about doomsday cults waiting for the end of the world? The end of the world is an event not likely to happen anytime in the near future. Is their patience then a waste of time? Well, we do not know that the end of the world is an event not likely to happen anytime in the near future.

Waiting in ignorance is a waste of time. No, because the future is always unknown, so it is not a waste of time. Thus, because the future is always unknown, it is not the case that:
If not-(either result or character building), then (waste of time).

We had earlier established that:
If (either result or character building), then not-(waste of time)

We now establish that:
If not-(either result or character building), then not-(waste of time)

But, it must be either:
(either result or character building) or not-(either result or character building)

Thus, patience is never a waste of time.

We can say the future is never known only when we look ahead in time. However, when we engage hindsight, we are able to say that “there is no result, or there is a bad result, or no character development occurred”, and hence that “patience was a waste of time”.

What if we had pessimistic foresight? This yields only an anticipated waste of time, rather than an actual waste of time.

We refer back to the definition of patience. It involves complaint. If we have a pessimistic foresight, and we complain about it, we do not have patience. The question dissolves. If we have pessimistic foresight and we do not complain about it, we are patient, but we are still dealing with anticipated waste of time rather than actual waste of time.

The word “patience” is used only in foresight. Judgement is exercised only in hindsight. In foresight, patience is never a waste of time. Hence, patience is not a waste of time.

What about procrastination? So far, we have been discussing patience in terms of passively waiting for some event to occur. Procrastination is also a kind of patience, waiting to perform some action.

We note the pejorative flavour of the word “procrastination”, which will bias the discussion. We decide to ignore this pejorative flavour, and focus only on the literal meaning of the word: “to delay action”.

Is procrastination (as a form of patience) a waste of time?

If procrastination leads to a result, then it is not a waste of time. But this is known only in hindsight. When we procrastinate, we are necessarily looking ahead, but because the future is always unknown, such patience is never a waste of time.

In conclusion, however we look at it, patience is never a waste of time.

It has been an extremely productive discussion.


Philosophy cafe sessions are held on every third Wednesday of the month at Nook, 15 Chu Lin Road, from 8-10pm. All enquiring minds are welcome, there is no other prerequisite. It's free parking and free admission, with personal expense for food and drink. The next philosophy cafe session will be held on 17 March 2010. Hope to see you there.