Modern American society praises instant gratification and personal gain. All day long commercials on TV bombard viewers with special diets, products, and services that promise to solve all sorts of problems and to grant nearly miraculous results. Just hand over your credit card number and all will be well.
Let’s take a step back. In 1972, psychologist Walter Mischel ran a test out of Standford that has since be named the “Marshmallow test.” Mischel offered a child a marshmallow that they could eat immediately or two small rewards if the child waited to eat the marshmallow. Over the course of the study, Mischel’s study showed that the children who waited to eat the marshmallow wound up having better life outcomes.
We can choose to eat the marshmallow in front of us or we can wait and have better results over the long term.
Of course, there’s no way for us to know what the future will bring, but when we look at our lives, there are some simple choices we can make in which deferring instant gratification is a good thing: If we eat too much sugar or sweets, we could have problems with obesity.
The life choices that we make will help set us up for long-term success.
Small habits that we start today can make a big difference over time.
But if we always reach for the soft drink, the dessert, spend money on the most recent fad diet, are we really helping ourselves out for the long run?
I believe in moderation. On one hand, we don’t want to become so restrictive in our lives that we don’t have any fun. And on the other, we don’t want to be out of control and always fulfilling every single desire that we have.
One additional point about Mischel’s marshmallow experiment: An updated version of the test took place recently with a larger number of people in the study. What were the results? It seems that one’s economic background had more to do with whom waited on eating the marshmallow than willpower.
Makes sense if you think about it: People who have more resources and are richer are willing to wait for what they wanted because they can see and better understand the long-term effects.
No matter if you think it’s willpower or your social/economic background that affects how you make choices in life, one thing is clear: If you say “yes” to everything, you’ll not be able to achieve longer-term goals.
Again, moderation is key.
Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.
