Let the Fig Ripen

"If you get out of the mentality that you have to have everything now, you are going to be a lot more successful."
(from my tweets, 2015)

The next day I tweeted: "It's about patience. If you are in it long enough, you are going to win big." A few weeks earlier I had written: "Patience is one of the most effective tools to be successful."

I needed the reminder. In those years I wanted everything to happen quickly, and almost nothing did. I later tweeted that I had expected my dreams to come true in year one or two, but they came in years seven through ten.

Patience is one of those virtues everyone praises and few people enjoy practicing. But research suggests it's connected not only to success, but to how happy we feel along the way.

What the marshmallow test really showed

You've probably heard of the "marshmallow test." In the 1960s and 70s, psychologist Walter Mischel offered preschoolers a choice: one treat now, or two if they could wait alone in a room for a few minutes. In follow-up studies, children who waited longer tended, years later, to have better outcomes, including higher test scores.

For decades, that was told as a simple story: self-control in childhood predicts success in life. But in 2018, Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan and Haonan Quan repeated the study with a much larger and more diverse group of children. The link was much weaker than in the original, and most of it disappeared once they accounted for things like family background.

An earlier 2013 study by Celeste Kidd and colleagues at the University of Rochester added another twist. Before the test, some children experienced an adult who kept promises, and others experienced an adult who broke them. Children who had learned the adult was reliable waited about four times longer.

So patience isn't just willpower. It depends a lot on whether waiting makes sense, on whether you trust that the reward is really coming. That's a useful insight for adults too. Patience is easier when you believe in what you're waiting for.

Patient people tend to be happier

Psychologist Sarah Schnitker has studied patience as a character strength. In a 2012 paper, she found that more patient people reported better mental health, including fewer symptoms of depression and more life satisfaction. They also made more progress toward their goals when those goals were hard.

In one of her studies, people went through a two-week program to practice patience, learning to notice their impatience, reframe frustrating situations and calm their bodies. They reported feeling more patient and less depressed afterward. Patience, it seems, can be trained.

The pleasure of looking forward

There's another reason not to rush: waiting can be enjoyable. In 2007, psychologists Leaf Van Boven and Laurence Ashworth found that people often feel stronger emotions when looking forward to a good experience, like a vacation or a holiday, than when looking back on it afterward.

Anticipation is part of the reward. When we demand everything now, we skip a part of the happiness that comes from looking forward.

What the philosophers said

Epictetus put patience in the most natural terms. In his Discourses, he wrote: "No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen" (1.15).

Seneca warned about the opposite trap. In On the Shortness of Life, he wrote that "the greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today." That's the tension at the heart of patience. We wait well for the future, but we don't wait so hard that we stop living in the present.

Patience done right isn't putting life on hold. It's living fully today while trusting that good things take time.

How to practice patience

• Stretch your timeline. Whatever you're working toward, imagine it might take twice as long as you hope. Notice whether you'd still want it. If yes, that's real commitment.
• Build trust in the process. Like the children who waited longer for a reliable adult, look for evidence that your efforts are moving you forward, even slowly.
• Name your impatience. When you feel rushed or frustrated, say, "I'm feeling impatient." Naming it gives you a moment to choose a response.
• Enjoy the anticipation. Let yourself look forward to good things without demanding them right now.
• Live today too. Remember Seneca. Don't let waiting for tomorrow cost you the day you're in.

Today's reflection

The things that matter most rarely arrive on our schedule. In my own life, they came years later than I expected, and they were still worth it.

So today, pick one thing you've been trying to rush. Give it a little more time. Let the fig blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Sources

• Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. L. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244(4907), 933–938.
• Watts, T. W., Duncan, G. J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the marshmallow test: A conceptual replication investigating links between early delay of gratification and later outcomes. Psychological Science, 29(7), 1159–1177.
• Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children's decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126(1), 109–114.
• Schnitker, S. A. (2012). An examination of patience and well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(4), 263–280.
• Van Boven, L., & Ashworth, L. (2007). Looking forward, looking back: Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(2), 289–300.
• Epictetus. Discourses, 1.15.
• Seneca. On the Shortness of Life, 9.