Comments

  • Why Was There A Big Bang
    ↪Apollodorus
    Interesting. So, if no evidence and no witnesses, then perhaps it never happened?
    Maybe not. Who knows? Its just a theory.
  • Why Was There A Big Bang
    ↪Apollodorus
    Is there any hard proof that there was a Big Bang in the first place?
    No, or at least I don't know of any proof, its just that some people believe that's how the universe got started.
    And if there was one, how come no one heard it? :wink:
    Apparently because humanity hadn't come into existence yet, and so therefore nobody was around to hear it, according to those who believe in the Big Bang.

    And besides space is a vacuum so you can't hear anything.
  • Aversion To Change
    To everybody who replied, thank you for all your great replies. :-)

    Anyway, here is a video of zombie Paris having her meltdown about not getting into Harvard, she's having a meltdown because she didn't get the change she wanted.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJkcGkUyUa8&t=41s
  • Aversion To Change
    So sometimes its not change but lack of change that we have an aversion to, to be specific, lack of desired change.

    For example, lets say a high school student wants to get a football scholarship to this university they want to go to and they don't get the scholarship and as a result the student is very upset. Getting the football scholarship would've been a change for the student, but the student is upset not because they got the scholarship but because they didn't get the scholarship. So in this case its not change but its lack of change that makes the student upset.

    Anybody familiar with the show Gilmore Girls, there is this scene where Paris Geller comes to school looking like a zombie and goes off on this speech about how she didn't get into Harvard. For Paris to get into Harvard that would've been a change for her. The reason she came to school looking like a zombie and had a meltdown was not because she got into Harvard but because she didn't get into Harvard, so it wasn't change that caused Paris all that grief it was lack of change.

    So there you have it, it isn't always change but often lack of change that we have an aversion to.
  • The Value Of Patience
    So anyway, concerning patience, I recently completed this program where I learned about jobs with deadlines. Lets say you've got a job where you have to do a project, you've got a deadline in which to get the project done. In other words, you have to get the project done by a certain date, the date is the deadline.

    Now, are you going to be patient and take longer than your deadline to get your project done? If you do you won't keep your job. This is what Im talking about when I say that in some ways, that some sorts of "patience" is bad, and that being patient, in some ways, can be foolish.
  • Hard And Easy Is All Relative
    I think life is hard for everyone. — Caleb Mercado

    This is obvious but it does vary from person to person, just how hard life is for somebody. But some people might choose to have things hard. In school, did you ever sign up for a harder class? If you play or played sports, did you ever choose to be on a harder, more advanced team? Depending on what kind of job you do, have you ever decided to take on a harder project? Even with stuff such as video games, if you're a video game player you might choose to play a game on the "hard" setting.

    Sometimes you want stuff to be hard because you want to grow and you want a challenge.
  • There Are No Shortcuts To Excellence
    ↪Caldwell
    You got a good point there. I can take what you say and apply it to some of the other stuff I might talk about in some of my other threads.
  • There Are No Shortcuts To Excellence
    ↪Caldwell
    Sorry, in my last post, I meant to say option B.
    So in other words, you're saying option B takes more patience.
  • There Are No Shortcuts To Excellence
    ↪Caldwell
    It looks like time is the essence of patience, so yeah, option A requires more patience in a sense that the length of time to arrive at your goal is longer. I think you inadvertently implied that working is the key to your question. In actuality, working 40 hours requires more patience, than working 20 hours a week.

    Im not sure I quite understand, first you talk about how option A requires more patience because it takes you longer to reach your goal but then you say that working 40 hours, which is option B, takes more patience. It sounds like you're contradicting yourself.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪TheMadFool
    The other problem with time in re packing problems is that time seems to be 1 dimensional unlike space which is 3D. 3D space allows us to do much more, much much more than would be possible in space of lower dimensions. That said, there's parallel processing which, in a sense, makes time 2 dimensional, allowing more to be done in a given time.
    Space is four dimensional. Time is just another form of space along with height, width, and depth. Time can be defined as, "the space between two intervals," so there you have it, time is space.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪Possibility
    Well, by my account we are five-dimensional: we recognise that the passage of time is experienced differently according to perceived value/significance. Time is relative - both in quantity and quality.
    I don't see how time is relative, a second is a second, a minute is a minute, an hour is an hour, a year is a year, a decade is a decade, any way you look at it. One minute of my life is just as long as one minute of your life.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪TheMadFool
    The aim is to "pack" as many useful/productive activities into a given time slot, keeping time wastage at a minimum. I suppose such a perspective treats time and space as somewhat equivalent concepts. Come to think of it, we do experience time (we age), doesn't that mean we're 4-dimensional beings?
    Yes you've hit the nail right on the head, its all about not wasting time and getting as much done as you can, and doing as good a job as you can, in the least amount of time. We are four dimensional beings living in a four dimensional world. Are four dimensions are height, width, depth, and time.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪Possibility
    I can only imagine you keep bringing up this example from personal experience.
    -Possibility
    Yes as a matter of fact this is from personal experience and from a personal situation.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪Possibility
    Only you can answer that. Are you choosing to work 40 hours a week because you can, or because you’re unwilling to wait? Personally, I don’t think anyone’s in a position to morally judge someone else as ‘less patient’ in this situation. If they do, it’s a relative judgement, based on their own limited understanding.
    The stuff you say in your post is quite deep but there is even more to it. For instance, you ask why Im choosing to work 40 hours a week and mentioning unwillingness to wait on my part as a possible answer. Lets say Im working 40 hours a week because Im unwilling to wait but it goes even deeper than that. Why am I unwilling to wait? That's the next question that is raised. Maybe Im unwilling to wait because I want to save an extra week of time by taking only one week to achieve my goal of earning $400 instead of two weeks. I've only got so long to live so by reaching my goal of making $400 in one week instead of two, that gives me an extra week, an extra week in the time I've got to live in the world to achieve more goals. It all adds up.

    I do somewhat agree with you in that we shouldn't judge others for being less patient in given situations. The problem is, when somebody else requires you longer to get something done because they want you to be patient.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪TheMadFool
    Good question. I was just mulling over this about half an hour ago and what I concluded is that impatience, despite being maligned as a vice, is actually your intuition asking one question1. Can we speed things up? and telling you 2. time is of the essence. These are two sides of the same coin of course; after all if time is a limited, thus valuable resource, we need to use it sparingly and wisely, thus the felt-need faster is better (to save time...for other things).

    On this view, an intriguing aspect of the idea that patience is a virtue emerges, to wit, time isn't as big a deal as it's made out to be. A shocking claim but necessarily true if patience is regarded as something good (or not?). Perhaps, by being patient you offer to others your dearest possession - time - and that, it's believed/assumed, brings you one step closer to sainthood.

    Saw this sign on a road once:

    Be patient on the road if you don't want to be a patient in a hospital
    — Road Sign

    Last I checked, it's still there.

    Anyway, there might be something in it for a person who's patient. As they say, haste makes waste.
    You make some good points. Anyway about time being a limited, yes it is. You've only got so long to live. While you don't know beforehand how long you're going to live it is nonetheless your time limit for everything you do in this life. Therefore time is limited and very valuable.

    So yes to answer your second question time is of the essence. Now as to your first question about speeding things up, sometimes we can speed things up. In the old days you had to walk, or ride a horse, to get from place to place. Now we've got cars, busses, and airplanes so we can get places much faster. In the old days if you wanted to send a message to somebody who was a considerable distance you had to write them a letter and then send it and wait however long, a week, two weeks, for it to get to them. Now we've got smart phones and can send messages almost instantly to almost anywhere in the world. Those are just two examples. So yes, sometimes we can speed things up.

    You are right that haste makes waste, so therefore when you do speed things up you don't want to sacrifice something else in doing so. You don't want to be sloppy when you speed things up. Being patient on the road I believe is a good idea, if by being patient that means not exceeding the speed limit, stopping at red lights, and otherwise being safe on the road. We will always need patience but if you're, say, driving at speeds significantly less than the speed limit just because you want to be patient, if you ask me that is just plain foolish.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪Possibility
    Patience is always relative. Yes, it requires patience to make $400 working for $10 per hour - whether you achieve the goal in one week or two. If someone started one week later on a job that would only pay for those two weeks, would working 40 hours in that one week be considered impatient?

    If only 20 hours work is available each week, then more patience would be required by someone with the capacity or willingness to work 40 hours per week than someone working to their capacity at 20 hours per week.
    I see what you mean when you talk about the possibility of only having 20 hours a week available to work, but Im talking about a situation where you're able to work 40 hours a week. We know that making $400 will take patience whether you work 20 hours or 40 hours a week making $10/hour but the question is, does it take more patience to work only 20 hours a week when you can work 40? Assuming Im able to work 40 hours a week, if I choose the option of working 40 hours a week, am I being less patient than if I work 20?
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪Possibility
    Agreed, but that has nothing to do with patience. Patience is an awareness that every event or change requires a certain amount of time, effort and attention, and only so much of each is available. The less attention you can give, the more time or effort is required. The less time you have, the more effort or attention is required, etc.
    So in my example in my other thread where I talk about working 40 hours per week as opposed to 20 hours a week, where you're making $10/hour and you have a goal of making $400 what you're saying is that working 20 hours a week and taking two weeks to reach your goal does not take more patience than working 40 hours a week and reaching your goal in one week?

    Now in both cases, its going to require some patience of course since in neither case are you making $400 instantaneously, but the question is whether or not working 20 hours a week takes more patience than working 40 hours a week since doing so will take you an extra week to meet your goal.
  • There Are No Shortcuts To Excellence
    ↪Caldwell
    Both requires patience. Efficiency shouldn't be a "criticism" against patience. Saving time shouldn't diminish the value of patience.
    - Caldwell

    Of course both require patience, in neither case are you going to make $400 instantaneously. The question is, if going with option A requires more patience since that option does take it longer to reach your goal.
  • There Are No Shortcuts To Excellence
    ↪ghostlycutter
    You said it yourself, harder work, greater precision, etc.

    Just because everyone works a 9-5 doesn't make that work, work is truthfully timeless, but with the time schedule you've put up it'd just be Egyptians and that's it, we're over.

    It's good to be patient as I prescribed in your other thread, helps to perfect products.

    Yes I agree, taking shortcuts often has risk associated with it that can be detrimental to the final product.
    Well yes this thread of mine does overlap a bit with my other thread on the value of patience. What you said about shortcuts, however, I don't think shortcuts exist if you want to attain excellence. As you say, it can be detrimental to the final product and if your final product is less good than its supposed to be than you haven't attained excellence.

    In regards to patience though, with my example where your working and making $10/hour and you want to make four hundred dollars, you've got two options.

    Option A, you work 20 hours a week and take two weeks to make $400

    Option B, you work 40 hours a week and take one week to make $400

    Does it take more patience to go with option A? After all, its taking you longer to make your $400 with option A so you could say that it does require more patience but option B is harder, you have to work more hours per week so its harder in that sense but you're getting your $400 in just one week as opposed to two.

    This is of course, assuming that working 40 hours a week as opposed to 20 does not affect your job performance, that by working 40 hours you're able to do just as good a job as if you work 20 hours.

    So does going with option A take more patience? Does going with option B mean one is impatient?
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪TheMadFool
    To my knowledge, everything that can be said to happen - those things (phenomena/processes/procedures) that constitue the setting in which the concept of patience is meaningful - have a rate at which they occur. For instance, if you're filling your cup with coffee, the coffee will pour into your cup with a certain flow rate which the manufacturer of the coffee dispenser considers appropriate.

    Now, the upper limit for any rate is the mind-boggling speed, a rate, of light which is, according to Google, 299,792,458 m/s but the rates we usually encounter in our day to day lives are tiny fractions of the speed of light. The takeaway from this being that rates have maximums and also minimums.

    Suppose now that you're waiting for your cup to fill up with coffee. Your cup has a capacity of 250 ml, the maximum rate of flow of your coffee dispenser is 50 ml/s. No matter what you do, you will have to wait, at the very least, 5 s. Given these circumstances, losing one's patience because 5 s is not something you feel you can put up with is pointless and unnecessarily stressful.
    I see where you're coming from, and all too often Im in those very same situations where losing your patience is, as you put it, "pointless and unnecessarily stressful," most notably when Im waiting at red lights.

    But aside from that, lets say you're using a dispenser that is able to dispense coffee at a maximum rate of 100 ml/s, are you going to take advantage of that faster rate of 100 ml/s and save yourself 2.5 seconds or are you going to go with the slower rate of 50 ml/s and take an extra 2.5 seconds just because you want to be patient? If the only dispenser you can use has a maximum rate of 50 ml/s then it would make sense to be patient because as you put it, being impatient is pointless, but if you're able to use a dispenser that has a rate of 100 ml/s would you use it and by using such a dispenser does that mean you're impatient?

    If you ask me, taking more time to do something instead of less time, provided that it doesn't change the end result, is just plain foolish.
  • The Value Of Patience
    ↪ghostlycutter
    "The maximum of innovative ideas you can have surrounding, let's say, a game you're designing, may change day to day; depending on how much you know about game design.

    Patience may be irrelevant but definitely key in acquiring that knowledge.

    A motto to live by, 'experience a few clocks before finalizing a product'."

    That's all fine and dandy provided that the few clocks you experience don't take you past your time limit. For instance, lets say you have to the end of the week to finalize your product, you don't and to experience so many clocks as to take you past the end of the week, then you're in trouble.
  • The Value Of Patience
    I think you are describing procrastination, which is not a symptom of patience.

    Patience generally refers to the ability to overcome or tolerate emotional and psychological pressures such as delays, setbacks, impulses and so on.

    Procrastination generally refers to succumbing to the desire to avoid doing what you don't want to do.

    I don't think someone can be acting patiently while procrastinating. I think too much patience can be a bad thing if you're missing opportunities in which there are many forms.     — Judaka
    Good point. What you said about procrastination makes good sense and procrastination is a big problem if you've got a goal that has a time limit. As an example lets say I'm a Boy Scout and I want to make the rank of Eagle Scout. Im Boy Scouts you have up until you turn 18 to become an Eagle Scout, that's the cutoff point. So lets say I start at 11, a common age to start at, that would mean I have 7 years to become an Eagle Scout. Does it take patience to become an Eagle Scout? I suppose you can say it does in that you're not going to be an Eagle Scout on your first day as a Boy Scout. However you don't want too much patience, you don't want to be so patient as to take longer than 7 years to become an Eagle Scout or you will never be an Eagle Scout as you will have missed the cutoff point. But as you said, that's not patience that's procrastination. Something for me to think about.
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