He Kept Me on a $1,800 Allowance and Called Me a Kept Housewife. He Never Checked Who Held the Deciding Vote on the Company He Was Trying to Buy

There is a patience that is surrender — the patience of a person who has given up and is simply enduring.

And there is a patience that is strategy — the patience of a person who has seen exactly what she is dealing with, understood that she does not yet hold the winning position, and chosen to wait, and gather, and stay calm, until she does.

For a long time I could not have told you which of the two mine was; they wear the same face from day to day, and I spent months, maybe years, genuinely unsure whether I was biding my time or just drowning slowly.

What I have learned is that you often cannot know which kind of patience you are living inside until the moment it is tested — until the day the opening comes, and you find out whether you step through it or let it pass.