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Good morning. How long does it take to acknowledge a social wrong? Well, two events this week happened to take the best part of fifty years. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has apologised to Sacheen Littlefeather for “unwarranted and unjustified” abuse she received in 1973 when she represented Marlon Brando in declining his award for Best Actor. And on Tuesday, the UK government announced that more than 4,000 victims who were treated with infected blood by the NHS in the 1970s would receive interim compensation acknowledging the devastation and loss to their families’ lives. In accepting the Academy’s apology after so long, Little Feather reflected: “We Indians are very patient people”. If patience is a virtue, how does it apply where hurt and social injustice are ongoing? The 16th Century Vaishnava theologian, Rupa Goswami wrote that when it comes to cultivating change in oneself and in society, patience should be combined with other attributes – of which the first is, in Sanskrit, utsaaha. Often translated as ‘enthusiasm’, it’s not giddy excitement. Rather utsaaha refers to a profound inner power of motivation and drive. This quality fuels the second attribute: the determination to continue one’s mission through all setbacks and challenges. As the Hindu text, Bhagavad-gita, explains: To work to benefit others, one must strive with great energy and fortitude, without any sense of pride or personal gain and without losing focus when there’s failure or even some success. Then, patience comes into play. This is the recognition that it takes time for human minds to transform. Sometimes, amongst each other, we seem to be in outright disagreement. More often, we are emphasising different priorities. Tackling any of the great challenges of the world - climate, inequality, war – requires all three virtues: drive, determination and patience. It takes time and effort to bring human minds together. Rupa Goswami applies these attributes not only to social change - but also to one’s inner spiritual journey. The word utsaaha is most commonly known to Hindus in its derivation utsaava – which means a festival. This weekend, many Hindus around the world will celebrate the festival of Krishna Janmashtami with great enthusiasm. Festivals do encourage and inspire us, but Rupa Goswami stresses that, like social change, spiritual life requires us to persist with drive, determination and patience.