How Patience Is the Virtue of Remaining in Difficulty

In the Paris Olympic Games, Dutch runner Sifan Hassan accomplished one of the greatest feats in running history. On the biggest stage in sports, Hassan competed in three events—running two rounds of the 5,000-meter run, the 10,000-meter run, and the marathon—over nine days. She secured three medals—two bronze and a gold.

Early in each race, viewers may have been tempted to count Hassan out. While some runners sprinted off the line to claim front-running positions early, Hassan held back and conserved her energy. She waited to unleash her finishing kick right when she needed to—at the end of each race, timing things perfectly to secure a medal. Patience was a major factor in her success.

Sometimes, patience is mischaracterized as inaction in a world that lauds speed and incentivizes busyness. But patience is an asset, even at fast speeds. If one of the fastest women in the world has time to wait, maybe we do, too.

Source: Tuzemka Shutterstock

The Concept

Patience is the virtue of remaining in difficulty. Cicero, a Roman statesman and orator, defined it as the “voluntary and prolonged endurance of arduous and difficult things,”[1] and Aquinas writes that it helps us remain in hope.[2]

Augustine describes patience as laudable only when we tolerate difficulty “with an even mind,”[3] and psychologist Sarah Schnitker writes that patience involves waiting “calmly in the face of frustration or adversity.”[4] So, it is not just waiting that is exemplary. If we are grumpy or agitated about it, this is not a virtue. How we wait matters, too.

I have already illustrated patience’s value in race settings. But patience is a constitutive feature of a good life beyond sports. Here are some reminders about this often-underappreciated virtue.

1. Patience is not passivity. I used to run by a field in the winter months that had a sign that read, “Wildflowers in progress.” I laughed at that sign, positioned on a barren field. But as spring approached, the day inevitably arrived when I would run past the field, and, suddenly, it was no longer barren. It was full of wildflowers of various colors and shapes. The flowers had been there all along, in various stages, from seed to blossom, making progress beneath the dirt.[5]

Patience is a lot like a wildflower field. To outsiders, it can look like inaction. But waiting well often involves a lot of determination and unseen work. Sometimes patience requires preparation—positioning oneself to be ready for the next action. An example is the time between submitting a school application and receiving a verdict on admission. In the interim, a student can act in light of the hope of acceptance, making strides in her scholarship.

Often, patience “involves an act of inner restraint against our other impulses.”[6] Racing is a good example of this. We may be tempted to speed up or respond to early moves, but sometimes the patient action—remaining in place, without making a change—is the right one.

2. Patience supports many other virtues. Philosopher Matthew Pianalto calls patience a foundational virtue. He cites Gregory the Great’s dictum that “patience is the root and guardian of all the virtues.”[7] Stated differently, it is difficult to be loving, courageous, or wise without also being able to wait with excellence.

For example, imagine trying to be a good parent, teaching a child to tie their shoes, while being frustrated with how long it takes for them to learn. Or imagine impatient players attempting to be courageous on a soccer field. They may act rashly, finding themselves unable to wait for the right moment to rise to suitable risk.[8] Some degree of patience is required to act well in many respects.

Returning to the example of Sifan Hassan, patience supports endurance. Endurance and patience are linked as a single concept in Greek. The term hupomoné means “patient endurance.” It involves steadfastness or “remaining under a burden.” If you would like to take up cycling or running, you may need to work on your patience.

3. Practice makes patience. Earlier, I defined patience as a virtue. This means it is an acquired excellence, and the way we acquire it is by practice.

This takes the guesswork out of improvement. Patience is acquired in much the same way that we acquire other sporting skills—by intentional repetition. We act patiently until doing so defines us in a stable way.

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Final Thoughts

Patience is the virtue of remaining in difficulty. It is active, not passive, and without it, we struggle to endure. This is a difficult virtue to master, and it is rarely celebrated in a culture that prizes speed. But if we pursue goods that are far off—be they finish lines for Hassan or long-term goals for anyone else—patience is important.