가만 있으면 중간은 간다
wait there-is-IF middle-TOPIC go-PRES
If [you] wait [you] get halfway.
“Waiting will get you halfway there.”
This was actually very hard to translate or figure out. I still can’t really think of an English proverb that matches what I think it means, exactly. How about “waiting is half the battle”? Or even “patience is a virtue”? Then again, there’s the possibility that I haven’t quite got the meaning right. I only figured it out because I found a guy writing – in English – about the opposite proverb, “If you wait you never get even halfway” and he presented this Korean one as a contrast.
Either way, it brings to mind one of my favorite old tropes, Zeno’s Paradox. Do we get there by going halfway? Or do we get halfway if we have to go halfway to halfway first? Philosophers ponder, while Zeno’s girlfriend is stuck waiting.
