Is patience worth the wait?

In today's world, everything is "instant" - instant food, instant gratification. Also, when success is being measured on perceptions and not on work done, the question that always comes to my mind - "should I work or should I show that I work"

Me being of old school of thought - always used to think that if I work hard and smart, then results would speak for itself. However, looking at many of people working around, I fear that gaining perception rather than putting in hard/smart work is gaining momentum. With information clearly available and jobs in demand, I find that people learn theory and then experiment in their jobs. While this approach is OK, there could be few people who work hard and does not build up perceptions, left alone in this process

However, my experience has been - patience is definitely worth the wait. While people can move swiftly using perceptions that they have built, hard/smart work definitely pays. It is only matter of time, work put definitely outmanovores any perception