If you say it is a matter of patience, then you are implying that there is some kind of guarantee, and there is not.
The better way to think about the subject of bitcoin investing into the future is that it is a matter of position size, so you take a position based on how probable you believe that the BTC price might go up versus going to zero (or some other scenario(s) in which you do not profit.
So if you place $1,000 into bitcoin, and it goes to zero you have lost $1k, however, there are scenarios in which your $1k could go up to $2k, $5k, $100k, 1,000k or some other amount, so you can weigh the probability of the various possible outcomes to consider how much of a position size (allocation) into bitcoin that you believe would be good for you in case some kind of an UPpity scenario were to take place rather than some other scenario, including a downity or sideways scenario.
I believe in the scenario that the only time I should completely be feeling worried or calculating losses in any amount that I have invested in Bitcoin is when I have completely sold out my holdings at a price lower than what I initially purchased them at.
Economically, when the price of goods purchased is no longer valued up to the price at the time of purchase, losses will immediately be recorded. But in times of Bitcoin investment, I feel otherwise. It's only when I have one person succeed in selling their holdings because of the fear of price uncertainty. That loss should be recorded, provided that the Bitcoin is still held without a SAT being removed. I believe the chances of it getting back to the price at the time of purchase and doing 2X are higher than what it will take for it to completely liquidate.
Of course, if you are either currently in profits or you are in profits in the future, then you have more options, and you feel better about your holding bitcoin, but still, there is no guarantee that you will ever be in profits, even though the odds for your being in profits are greater once you are already in profits.
Whether I am stating the obvious or not, there are a lot of ways to measure how much of a gain that you are getting out of having bitcoin as one of your options, and historically, those people who have been able to mostly error on the side of accumulating bitcoin and holding onto their bitcoin have tended to have done a lot better than those people who have cashed out of bitcoin.. especially if they are cashing out large portions of your bitcoin.
Another thing is that it makes a pretty big difference if you have built up less than a year of an investment portfolio versus if you have built up an investment portfolio that has a value that is somewhere in the 20-30 years worth of your cost of living. You have way more options in the second case, so it may well not really matter very much (or make much of a difference) in your life if you are fucking around too much and counting profits in regards to having ONLY a small investment portfolio, such as one that is less than one year of your income, and it can take a decently long time to get your investment portfolio to the size of 20-30 years of your income..
....so for example, if you spend 10 years saving and investing 10% of your salary, then maybe in 10 years you have invested/saved a whole years worth of income.. but you also might have to count on the value of your investment sufficiently increasing in order to keep up with the cost of living increases.. so that creates another challenge in regards to where you put your investment portfolio value and how such investment portfolio ends up performing - including that if you might end up spending 10 years to 30 years really getting to a place in which you have figured out how to balance your investment portfolio and that maybe the value of your investment portfolio can start to compound upon itself in order to perhaps start to do some of the work for you in terms of gaining in value, but at the same time, you have to consider both gaining in value, as well as making sure that you are not taking too many risks of losing your principle because you are trying to rush the compounding in value process.
No one can tell you exactly how to strike those kinds of balances, and the extent to which moving your value around whether that is from bitcoin into dollars or into other kinds of assets is going to bring the right kinds of balances in order to keep your investment portfolio growing sufficiently well in order that it's value gets you to a place in which you feel that you are building up a sufficient quantity of adequate options...
and none of it is guaranteed... even though many of us believe that building a bitcoin portfolio is good and keeping a certain amount of ongoing value in bitcoin is good too.. and some of us are not considering cashing out into dollars or anything else except perhaps in small kinds of ways rather than BIGGER kinds of ways that might end up putting us into too many dollars and not enough bitcoin...
So where is your balance? The answer now is likely going to be different than it is at various points down the road as maybe each of us has to tweak our BTC (and other forms of wealth) accumulation, maintenance and liquidation plans at various points during our journeys.