Delayed Gratification

I recently read an article that went a little deeper into the marshmallow study. In the marshmallow study they gave children a marshmallow and told them if they waited, they would get a lot more marshmallows. The original study found that there was a strong socioeconomic implications. In the new study they explore the idea of whether or not the child believed that the greater pay off would actually come. The study is too small to be definitively conclusive, but they found that when the children did not believe that the better payoff would come they ate the marshmallow sooner, the did not wait for the bigger pay off .

For the most part, when I was growing up I was not allowed to have sugar and when I did have it, I would shove it down my throat as fast as I could. I was definitely not able to delay gratification. Hot chocolate…gone, as soon as I could get it down. Sugary beverage (Hawaiian Punch and Country Time Lemonade were my favorites), gone, in 4 seconds.

Many of our habits, our patterns begin when we are children. It’s not that our parents screwed up, they are almost always doing the best they can with the resources they have. It is often because we had an experience, and we formed assumptions and jumped to conclusions based on that experience for the rest of our lives. We look for evidence to support the original conclusion, and we dig neural pathways of this behavior deep into our brain. The more evidence we find to support, the more likely these conclusions become our beliefs and we continue the behavior.

I would like to share my story that contributed to my difficulties in delaying gratification.

As I have said, I was not often allowed to have sugar. The one big exception was Halloween. I was into it. I rushed home from school. I couldn’t wait. This is the one day where I get to get candy and it would be mine. Nobody could take it away from me, I hoped. My mom was either not home, or she taking a nap, so I grabbed a pillowcase and headed out. I wanted the biggest receptacle I could get so that I could bring back massive amounts of treasure. It was still broad daylight, maybe 3pm on an overcast day. 

I started at the top of the block. There were some apartment buildings, and in my mind it was a great place to start, lots of doors minimal effort. There were like 15 doors in one building! My pillowcase would be half full in no time, I was definitely going to get more candy than anyone had ever seen! I knocked on one door, no answer. The second door, no answer. My heart began to sink. I knocked on the third and someone opened the door. “Trick or Treat” I said. The person at the door was flustered. “Oh, oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t gotten any candy yet.” The devastation on my face must have been severe because they asked me to hold on. They went back into their house and a few minutes later came back to the door with a hand full of change and a dollar. It wasn’t candy, but I could see that they went to a lot of effort to give me something, and for that I was grateful. I said thank you and continued on my journey. 

I came home well after dark and my pillow case was over half full! I had eaten a little candy while I was out, but I was mostly concerned with getting as much as possible. No time to stop and eat it. I was very proud of my haul, it was probably my biggest one ever. I dumped the pillow case out on the floor, and began to sort. There was so much, I would be rolling in candy for a long time. I had won! I began to eat my favorite candies, Butterfingers, M&Ms, Mr. Goodbar, Milk Duds, Whoppers. I had a good 7 or 8 mini candy bars and petered out. I was exhausted. I had worked so hard for that haul, I started early, more than one person gave me money because they didn’t have candy yet, I had walked many miles and covered the whole neighborhood. Off to bed I went, the rest of my candy would have to wait.

In the morning there were two mini candy bars in my lunch bag. I looked everywhere in the house but I couldn’t find my candy. Did she steal it? Where was it? I worked so hard! It was my candy! I should have expected this. She does this every year. But doesn’t she know how hard I worked? How could she just take it all away from me! It was mine! Disappointed and disillusioned I went to school. For the next few days there were two pieces of candy in my lunch, and then nothing. All that work and I only got about 20, maybe 25 pieces of candy, when I had brought home hundreds. I know the rule was that I could eat as much as I wanted that night, and that afterwards my mom would have some control over my haul, but every year I thought she would do the right thing, and I would eventually get what was mine, what I had worked so hard for. This was the year that I stopped trusting her word. This was the year I no longer believed her when she told me that I was going to get something good.

As I moved into adulthood I was never able to delay my gratification when it came to sugar, and other things. I could never eat half the pint of ice cream and save it for later, if I came home with two candy bars, they would both be gone before the night was up. I knew that nobody was going to eat my candy bars, but what I have come to realize is that there was a part of my subconscious that believed somehow I wouldn’t be get to have it if I didn’t eat it now.

What about you? Can you put off instant gratification when you think there might be a bigger payoff when you wait?