Patience V/s Persistence

A friend of mine pinged me and asked "What is the difference between Patience and Persistence? 

And I said to myself "What a simple question!" 

Patience is a virtue where in a person can wait for anything endlessly having faith that it is going to happen irrespective.

Persistence is a virtue by which a person takes certain action consistently even if he is not getting result or has any chance of getting results.

The answers were very simple but when I introspected deeply I found that it was a Pandora's box. 

I wondered that if both are a virtue then I should develop both the virtues in me. But then if I develop patience then I should take an action and wait patiently for the result to come. Which means no more action. And that is against the so called virtue of persistence which says keep throwing stones till the bulb is broken. 

My friend answered no it's not like that, you take an action , wait for the result to come and if the result doesn't come in a stipulated time then try again and persists till it happens.

I said ahaa .. but who decides till when to observe patience .. and again the moment a thought comes enough is enough I need to try once more , points out that patience is lost and action is required. Catch 22 

So Patience and Persistence cannot live together!!!

Let me give you an analagy..

Wild dogs are said to be the best hunters with maximum hit rate because once the team locates a possible prey it starts chasing it till the prey is exhausted and cannot walk more. Persistence pays and they devour the prey.

At the same time lion is not persistent. It cannot chase a prey till the end. So it waits for the prey to come near to it, and then pounces it. They have been noted to wait for the prey to come to them for hours.

They can lie motionless for hours. 

One more better example is Anaconda which can lie for months in wait of prey. Height of patience. 

So as wise human beings how do we imbibe both the virtues which seem contradictory?

And then I read about ducks and how they swim. If you notice a duck over the water it is calm, composed and swimming effortlessly. But if you see beneath the waters it's feet's are paddling continuously with great Persistence.

And eureka the solution dawned.

Patience is a thought process and not action oriented. So whenever we are expecting anything we should be calm , composed and have faith that we shall be rewarded one day. It is all about mind game. That way we will never get agitated, whatever the interim results are. Just practice Patience over mind. 

Persistence is action oriented and is related to body. So while our mind is waiting patiently for result to turn into our favor but at the same time our body is restless and keeps on working till the goal is not achieved. 

This is called working with detachment ..

Why most people fail is ..

They do not persist in their actions but at the same time they are impatient in their mind and when results don't come they start blaming the world , God , friend , family , society , country , weather etc etc ..

So the right amalgamation of Patience and Persistence will lead to manifestation of all our dreams...