Delayed Gratification is Counter-Cultural
The sixth of July is a special day for me. It’s our anniversary. Trisha, my wife, is a one of the most patient and kind people that I know. As you read this, we will be celebrating fourteen years of marriage. That’s a pretty long period of time.
Planned Celebrations
One of the greatest days of my life was our wedding day. We had such a great time celebrating with so many people from different parts of our lives. It was even a little strange to introduce some of my family members to hers and the wild card Spoke Folkers (this mission organization we met through).
One thing that sticks out about that day was how amazing it felt to finally get to a day that we prepared for about a year. During that time, I was in graduate school at “The U” (University of Miami), Trisha was student teaching in Shanghai, China, and her mom was doing most of the work in Michigan. We felt relief, but also a delayed gratification when the big day came.
Big parties (like a wedding reception) are the best examples of patience in today’s society. We actually take the time to plan the events and in some cases may even enjoy the process. I will say I could never be a wedding planner. My cousin’s wedding that I mentioned in E-Impact 54 last week was so amazing that I couldn’t imagine having to plan it all.
Quick Answers
A computer is a powerful tool. But, not a life coach.
Information is everywhere. We can find answers to our questions in just a few seconds. I find this to be very helpful. In fact, I touch on it in my book, “Personal Finance in a Public World”. The book is not directly related to the subject of this entry but I did quite a bit of research on technology and the information transfer of today.
I believe that today’s information technology is amazing and it can be used for very good things. The problem is that we have come to expect all responses to be immediate. We have made ourselves to believe that we deserve gratification for our efforts as quickly as we can Internet search.
Your Greatest Accomplishments
Think about the best things you have ever done. I would venture a guess that many of them took time. You probably celebrated them too. Here’s some things I can think of other than a marriage that we usually have celebrations for after an extended period of time:
High School
College
Sports
Bar/Bat Mitzvah
Confirmation
Retirements
There are others but these show that the greatest accomplishments take time.
Not as Great Accomplishments
Unfortunately, we expect a more immediate gratification with other things. We expect an instant grade on an assignment in school or an exam for a professional designation. Have you have seen the dreaded screen at a testing center that says, “Exam Complete. Thank you for your participation in the ‘National Association of Something Really Important to a Certain Group of People that You Want to be Good At’ Certified Professional exam. Your results will be mailed to you within three months (please allow an additional three weeks for potential postage delays).”? We play video games on our phone that give us rewards just for downloading the application. Casino, sports betting, and fantasy sports companies gives us money just for signing up! Perhaps the best example of immediate gratification is when you put up a social media posts and within seconds it’s “liked”. Ahh, what an amazing feeling. Someone saw my picture or comment and it was so moving that their thumb just double twitched instinctively and expressed the overwhelming joy they experienced from my expression.
We have too many reasons to compare the gratification of lesser accomplishments to the great things that we do. I don’t think there is a way to eliminate the immediate gratifications of the Internet and social media. But, we can do a better job of separating those searches and “likes” from our truly great accomplishments.
My Greatest Accomplishment
As alluded to above, it’s truly an accomplishment to reach fourteen years of marriage. I am proud of it and although I’m a little leery of self-promotion, I think it illustrate the point of this entry.
There are some interesting statistics about marriage on the Wilkinson and Finkbeiner Family Law Attorneys website. 50% of marriage in the US end in divorce! That is not an uplifting statistic. On a positive note, it seems that the divorce rate is actually lowering as millennial are taking more time to determine if marriage is appropriate for them and their partner.
It’s safe to celebrate anniversaries with a sense of accomplishment in mind. Every additional year of marriage makes me appreciate some of the vows that we have all heard many times. “Til death do us part” and “For better or for worse” stick out to me the most. When I committed to marriage with Trisha we were young, somewhat innocent, and taking quite a leap in our lives. We set out on a journey that is not supposed to end until one of us dies. We also are to expect tough times that could challenge our commitment. The longer we are married the more of those times there are. We grow stronger each time.
I may not have understood it at the time, but there is a delayed gratification from marriage that I experience every year which holds true to our vows.
Marriage really is the gift that keeps on giving.
How to Delay Your Gratification
This is not a marriage blog so I better switch subjects before all the young impactmakers jump ship.
I think it’s important to understand human desires related to gratification. Read Delayed Gratification and Impulse Control from VeryWell Mind and written by Kendra Cherry. This a great article describing how to train the mind to accept delayed gratification.
Two things in the article stick out to me the most. The first is this quote, “the ability to delay gratification can mean the difference between achieving our goals or not.”
Our goals as impackmaters are naturally long term. We look at big problems and strive to solve them over an extended period of time. The impactmaker life style may lend itself to even small acts of kindness. But, these are often done without any expectation of gratification. We don’t need anything in return for opening the door for someone our providing a smile and compliment. We must accept that gratification will take time. We work to make the world a better place and can understand that it is immediately better from our efforts. We must not require an immediate gratification as if our project has solved all related problems.
The second great point that the article makes is that trust is critical. We must have more than hope that we will be successful. We have to trust that our calling, skills, research, and determination will guarantee that the world will be positively impacted. That trust must extend throughout all the people who are involved in our project. If we don’t believe that what we are doing is going to make a difference, then some changes need to be made.
How to Accept Delayed Gratification
The article above also suggests two things. Give definitive time-frames and set realistic deadlines.
Have you ever been in a group exercise setting before and wondering how many repetitions or time you have left?
I have to admit one contentious point in my marriage is when we exercise together and Trisha doesn’t know what movement we are doing or how many or for how long. I don’t blame her. She needs a definitive time-frame. As humans, we just like to know what we are dealing with.
Realistic deadlines are also important. In this case, extending the time frame is actually helpful. The article gives the example of losing weight. You can only lose weight so fast. So, give yourself enough time to do it or else it will feel like you have to delay to reach your goal. If you set the deadline far enough out, you will not have to delay.
Living in Gratification
The most important part of gratification is your understanding of the significance of what you have. I suggest that we all have a daily gratification practice. It can be a formal journal that you fill out every morning (I think morning is the best time) before you find any distractions. Or, it can be meditation/prayer where you acknowledge the things that you have and what they enable you to do.
It is much better to be grateful for your life, health, family, gifts, skills, possessions, and most importantly, what all of those things allow you to do than to be waiting for the completion of your impact project. The fact is, you may not live to see the completion of what you are working on. But, you are operating in your “Zone of Desire” (see E-Impact 51).
The biggest, most popular efforts like world hunger or clean water have a long way to go. However, it’s great to know that there are people in organizations working on those issues. Your efforts are just the same. Be appreciative that you have been put in a place to make a difference and are already executing.
If you can’t celebrate something that hasn’t happened or been completed yet, why not address the things that you have. Don’t take these things for granted. Celebrate them and you’ll find the gratification you desire while still working towards a future gratification that may be delayed.
Now and Later
Now and Later Candies were a pretty big part of my childhood. I remember them being part of party favors or rewards for something in school or camp. The name was supposed to suggest that consumers would “like them now and want more later”.
The now and later concept is just like gratification. We love it now and want more later. We must accept this. But, we can’t confuse the “now” and “later” forms.
Concentrate on your daily gratification practices and the delayed gratifications won’t be so far-fetched. It’s counter-cultural.