A Professional Is Patient, from the War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book:  it uses his own enthusiasm against him.  Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion.  It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity.  We will hit the wall.  We will crash.  The Professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification.  He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare. The Professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work.  He knows that any job, whether its a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much.  He accepts that.  He recognizes it as a reality.  The Professional steels himself at the start of a project,  reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the sixty-yard dash.  He conserves his energy.  He prepares his mind for the long haul.  He sustains himself with the knowledge that if he can just keep those huskies mushing, sooner or later the sled will pull into Nome.

Photograph:  A waiter cleans tables at the Hilt bar in NE Portland, OR.    by J.W. Zirschky

Author: Steven Pressfield