I was having a discussion with a co-worker about the frustrating rate of change. My take on it was that change is always far too slow for our liking, but better ideas do eventually win. It's a fundamental issue with human nature. People can push really hard for a while. People can give up. But people can't, in general, push steadily on an issue for a really long time. To pick a nerdy analogy 1 , it's like a rocket vs. an ion drive. A rocket pushes really hard for a short period of time, coasts for a long time, and then decelerates hard at the other end. An ion drive, on the other hand, accelerates slowly and steadily for half the journey, flips around, and then decelerates for the second half. Over a long enough voyage (i.e., to Jupiter, not the Moon), the ion drive will get there faster. You will get a lot more by pushing steadily and undramatically. If you don't, those who oppose you can just wait for you to burn out and go back to business as usual. You risk pushing too hard and provoking a backlash. Or your violent revolution might actually succeed, but leave you worse off than before 2 . Not to say that violent revolution is always unjustified 3 , but rather that people are far too eager to choose that strategy. If you look at the people who have been most successful in their lives, the vast majority of them have been tortoises. They've been working steadily at it for a long time 4 . In the end, the most important thing is not intelligence or ability, but rather, not giving up and not stopping 5 .