Waiting for the right moment is patience. Waiting because you’re scared is just hiding with a nicer name.

Both look the same from outside and fairly similar from inside, which is why the mix-up is so easy. The difference is whether you can name what you are waiting for. Real patience has a condition attached: after exams, once I have saved four hundred, when she is back. Fear has no condition, so the moment keeps moving further out.

Try to say your condition out loud in one sentence. If nothing comes, that is worth knowing rather than being ashamed of. Then make the smallest version of the move, the one that is too small to be frightening.