What Are We All Waiting For, Anyway? Part 2 or “Go ahead and eat the marshmallow”

I’ve been thinking about the so-called virtue of “delayed gratification” and how the ability to postpone immediate satisfaction and wait for bigger benefits later has been touted as a superpower to success. It makes sense for some things of course. But in the work context it feels ever so slightly like indoctrination to grind culture when taken as a blanket statement. In other words, how true is it really for most people that the more self-denial and self-sacrifice one does, the more solid the line to ever better payoffs.

So I did what anyone would do, started Googling. And lo and behold, I found something shocking about the experiment where the little kids who were able to resist eating the marshmallow were more successful than the ones who ate it up carpe diem style. The experiment that has come to dominate beliefs about the virtues of success.

A new study tried to reproduce the same results with a much larger pool of 900 children drawn from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Guess what, the researchers failed to replicate the results of the famous marshmallow experiment; rather, their results now indicate that socioeconomics was the determining factor behind delayed gratification and later success in life. SOCIOECONOMICS was the determining factor behind delayed gratification AND later success in life. Makes sense ~ if a person can afford to wait because it’s their expectation and experience that marshmallows and titles will be given, then anticipation can feel maybe even almost fun. I guess postponing the gratification is neither a one size fits all approach nor one with equitable payoff.

Then, from deep within this rabbit hole, it hit me.  I was reminded of something my father told me during a difficult period, when I hoped, with bitterness, that once I slogged through this with blinders on and nose to grindstone, life could be good again. I’ll never forget the few seconds of silence on the phone that followed. “Your life is now,” he finally said. “You’re waiting for your life to start, but it’s already going by.” At that time I was really pissed at what I thought was a platitude.

Now I get it. Less living now doesn’t mean more living later. Instead of waiting for the ship to come in, it seems possible to shift to a belief that we *are* the ship and that it’s our choice to go wherever and whenever, eat the marshmallow AND the peach, and throw a bit of caution to the wind in the sails.