Pitch Patience

You know nothing about patience until you hear about this lab experiment that started in 1927.

“Anticipation is making me late, is keeping me waiting.”

Depending on your age and pop-culture orientation, that will make you think of either a 1971 Carly Simon hit— or ketchup.

In the late ’70s, before the advent of plastic squeeze bottles and instant condiment gratification, Heinz touted its ketchup as being so thick and rich that it was virtually impossible to get out of the glass bottle. Many baby boomers remember having to smack the bottle repeatedly to get the ketchup to come out … and that was supposed to be a good thing.

Anticipation. As the adage goes, good things come to those who wait. The real question, though, is how long you should have to wait for something good to happen. Think about how hard it is to wait for, say, a child to be born, or your upcoming wedding. We can wait a little while for these good things but, by and large, we humans aren’t very good at waiting. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we’re...