"Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."
Facing something with no clear answer yet, what is your standard for deciding 'it's okay to wait a little longer'?
A term used only once that has survived 200 years
John Keats was born into a family that ran a London livery stable, trained as a surgeon's apprentice, and became a poet. He died of tuberculosis at 25, yet in his short life left some of the most beautiful odes in English literature.
In the winter of 1817, walking home with friends after a Christmas pantomime, Keats experienced a moment when 'several things dovetailed' in his mind, as he wrote to his brothers. In that letter, describing the quality great writers like Shakespeare possessed, he used the phrase 'Negative Capability' for the first and only time.