My first time in a gym was a disaster. Having no lifting experience, I eagerly ran to the squat rack upon entering, slapped two 45-pound weights on each side of the bar, and attempted a squat. Needless to say, I got injured. I had a bruised back and a newly-developed inguinal hernia as a souvenir for my incompetence. That day, I realized that patience is important because rushing towards a goal can be damaging. But impatience leads not only to acts as a physical barrier but also a mental detour: derailing our minds from our original goals. There seems to be a common misconception that jumping into the deep end will be easy, and progress will come quickly. We often value speed and output: quotas and productivity over building foundations. For example, when I got my driving permit, my mother made me drive for 100 hours before my driver's exam. When I told my friends about her "tyranny," one bragged about how he lied to the DMV about getting the state-required 30 hours of driving and still got his license. Though I was impressed by him at the time, I was glad that I hadn’t followed the same path, but instead my mother’s suggestion. His hastiness created an unsteady foundation for his driving skills as he totaled his brand-new car two days before my driver's exam. While his accident was unfortunate, while my gym injuries were painful, these experiences taught me that impatience is dangerous. The reason for going to the gym isn't to lift the heaviest weight possible. The reason for getting your license isn't to finally get on the road. The reason for patience is to prevent the major pitfalls that come with rushing: the physical damage of ignorance and the misguided deterioration of goals.

When I first started investing, the first thing I wanted to do was immediately jump into volatile stocks with large returns and large losses, but my father stopped me and said: "the market is unpredictable, so you should play it safe." At the time, I thought that he underestimated my investing capabilities, but I later realized that the market, especially regarding newer stocks and cryptocurrency, is unpredictable. On May 6th of this year, it was announced that Elon Musk, a champion of the unstable cryptocurrency 'Dogecoin,' was going to be on Saturday Night Live. Multiple social media websites, including Twitter and Reddit, were thrown into a frenzy, as it was predicted that Musk would endorse the coin on national television. As a result, everyone tried getting in on the hype, and the price of Dogecoin soared. I thought about joining in, but then I remembered what my Dad said. Since Dogecoin had skyrocketed in price just one month prior and had no use, the coin's value could completely crumble if something went wrong during the performance. So I chose not to invest in Dogecoin that day, and I'm glad I didn't. During SNL, Dogecoin's price dropped from around 66 cents to just below 50 cents, and later as low as 43 cents after the show. If I had invested my savings into Dogecoin, I would've lost nearly 34% of my investment. Some of my friends who had bought in on the hype lost hundreds of dollars in a single night, and I would've done the same had I not followed my father's advice. Even if there is a massive amount of hype or promise behind a project, it is often best to just play it safe.