Good things come to those who wait

A poll by long term savings and investments specialist Standard Life has found that one in eight of us adopt a ‘live for the moment' culture and would choose the instant gratification of a £640 holiday this year, rather than be willing to wait five years for a holiday worth £5,000 instead.

The figures come from Standard Life's uk-wide poll and prize draw, in partnership with boutique hotel specialist i-escape.com, which investigates the nation's attitudes to planning for the future.  Entrants have to vote on which prize they would prefer; a short break this year worth £640, or a holiday of a lifetime in five years time worth £5,000.

Standard Life's John Lawson says:  "Planning five years ahead is something many people find difficult to imagine or do their best to avoid. Our poll shows that some people just seem too impatient to wait for greater rewards in the future, no matter how enticing they are. But being patient and taking a long term view on your finances is precisely what helps you achieve your goals and, ensures you remain financially secure. It might seem easier to take a short term view, but unless you plan ahead how else can you look forward to your future with confidence and optimism?"

So what if we were all this impatient?

We'd have far fewer doctors. If one in eight of the doctors employed by the NHS weren't patient enough to finish their studies, we'd have 14,061 fewer doctors in the UK.

We'd have no Dyson vacuum cleaners. It took Mr James Dyson five painstaking years to develop his iconic bagless vacuum cleaner.

We'd have no Wallace and Gromit. It took more than five years to create the most recent British movie, Wallace and Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

We'd have no Harry Potter. - It took JK Rowling over five years from the conception of Harry Potter to her first publisher deal in 1996.

We'd have far less ‘experts'. Writer and social science commentator Malcolm Gladwell suggests it takes five years to become an ‘expert' at any skill.

We'd have no Facebook Mark Zukerberg took Facebook from a small local operation to a social network of 250m users in just five years.