Some words on taking the long view

From https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html

Take the long view.

If it takes twenty years to complete the free encyclopedia, we should not feel impatient. That will be a blink of the eye in comparison with the history of literature, a moment in the history of encyclopedias.

In projects like this, progress is slow for the first few years; then it accelerates as more and more people join in, and eventually avalanches. It makes sense to choose the first steps to illustrate what can be done, and to spread interest in the long-term goal to inspire others to join in.

This means that the pioneers' job, in the early years, is above all to be steadfast. We must be on guard against downgrading to a less complete, less thorough goal because of the magnitude of the task. Instead of measuring our early steps against the size of the whole job, we should think of them as examples, and have confidence that they will inspire more and more contributors to join and finish the job.

TBH I found the whole article worth reading (I had not read it before), but the last section I found particularly congruent to the long view about building up a peer to peer electronic cash system that works for everyone.