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.