Patience Potential

Is patience really a virtue? What potential advantages does it have? What processes are involved in patience?

Patience is basically willfully waiting. The capacity to wait can be quite beneficial. Simply put, it means if there is a better option which can be gained by waiting, someone with patience will gain, while someone without patience will not. There're many situations throughout life, with some degree of option to wait for something better than would be gained from not waiting. Of course a lot of scenarios have many unknown variables, such as the chance of waiting to actually cause the benefit or not, or the degree of benefit, etc. But on a general basis, with any variant of degree of information known, someone with the ability to wait, is likely to have the advantage, with that extra option, compared to not. For eg, there is a vendor at a market giving free sandwiches as a promo, and the line up is 10 people long. If Hurry Henry has little patience, he will ignore this option, even if he would have considered it better in the end, but Patient Pat has patience, so he at least has the option to get the free sandwich, whether he chooses to or not.

What it takes to have the ability of patience, is another question. 1 major component to increase patience, would be comprehension. An individual needs the capability to comprehend cause and effect, to the degree that they can be aware that waiting a longer time, will cause the effect of a better reward. The concept of awareness of time, is part of this overall capability of comprehension, which allows the benefit of understanding that in the future, circumstances will change. I explained more details of the benefits of this concept in a post from 11 days ago; Time Awareness. 

Without this component of comprehension, an individual can still on occasion, take the option of waiting, in order to gain a benefit, but this behavior would likely have to be developed from being conditioned, subconsciously. This would take many repeated circumstances of very similar factors, in order for the subconscious to develop the connection of positive or negative reinforcement (as further explained in a post from 7 months ago; Reinforcement Mechanisms), with more time passing. 

Besides the downside of the subconscious requiring many repeated scenarios, it is also likely fairly limited in the amount of time which can pass, while still making that connection of reinforcement, with the factors involved in waiting. Subconsciousness seems to show significant priority for immediate reward/ consequences. 

On the other hand, the need for repeated scenarios of the same factors, can be virtually skipped using the process of comprehension. The function of comprehension is gained through conscious thought, with the ability to remember details of cause and effect, as I explained in a hypothesis from 2.5yrs ago; Conscious Comprehension. Being aware of how specific factors cause effects through interaction, allows the ability to apply that knowledge to new circumstances. This includes awareness that waiting a longer time period, will cause factors to change, for a potential benefit. 

Patience seems to be a virtue, in a way that it allows the option for a benefit, which can only be gained from waiting. The process of subconsciousness, mostly works based on instant gratification, voiding the option to wait, while conscious comprehension allows utilizing knowledge of details in situations where waiting will cause more beneficial factors, to be the; Patience Potential.