New Balance has a new ad out featuring moderately famous celebrities Jaden Smith, Coco Gauff, Sadio Mane, and Sydney McLaughlin. Take a look…
The catchphrase New Balance builds this commercial around, Impatience is a Virtue, is a play off the well-known proverb: “Patience is a virtue.” The point of the ad is to say that when you want something, you need to go get it. Today is the day. Carpe diem. Work, work, work, and you will get your reward sooner rather than later.
The Music. The song playing in the background is “Wrestling with Elephants” by Safari Youth.
The conflict. I understand New Balance and their ad campaign aims to win with a catchy/memorable phrase, but “impatience is a virtue” just doesn’t ring true in the real world. Younger generations might identify with the “I get what I want when I want it” mentality, but here is a list of few things that are in conflict with living impatiently…
Being great at a sport (you’d think New Balance would know this)
Road rage (isn’t it all caused by impatience?)
quitting a job or project before it’s finished
having a baby
adopting a baby
training for the Olympics
eating a perfect avocado
surfing
fishing
sewing
finding a spouse
gambling
waiting for glue to dry
training a dog
donating hair to Locks of Love (minimum donation length is 10 inches, which could take up to 2 years to grow to this length)
becoming a famous singer
a perfectly cooked steak
roasting marshmallows
learning to wakeboard
learning a new language
binge-watching an entire series in one night (arguably, this might not be a bad thing to some folks)
clipping a bonsai tree
seasonal crops
building anything out of Lego blocks
winning a game of monopoly
winning a game of chess (I think? I don’t know, I stink at chess)
beating your nephew and brother-in-law in a pickleball tournament
buying a house
setting up dominos
…and much more!
Your turn! What other things can be added to this list? Think about tasks and projects and adventures that can only be accomplished with patience, then comment below.
Final Thoughts. All of these things take time, energy, and work. Someone might be born with talent for a certain sport, but certainly a 10-year-old would not be able to make it in the NBA. The young person needs patience to continue developing their skills, learning new ones, and becoming the best player they can be. In the end, it’s quite wrong to think impatience leads to anywhere a person actually wants to be.
Thanks for stopping by!
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 
They were so impatient they forgot to latch the roll up door on the truck…
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