Delayed Gratification

 We often talk about the perils of instant gratification, but in my opinion, delayed gratification is no less deleterious. There are two primary reasons we seem impervious to its pitfalls.

First, by the time we achieve something we wanted long back, it does not excite us anymore. We hardly recognise this outcome as our long-attained fruition because we no longer remember the fervent desire that once pushed us towards developing some good habits to reach here. We are now hardly aware of the initial hurdles and the initial ecstasy which behoved us to reiterate and integrate these habits into our daily chores. It is now an unconscious, repetitive, and unmindful act, hence remains psychologically unrewarded. Even worse, it is not an outcome of our actions. We are rewarded because we were meant to. We achieved something because the others, no matter how competent they were, just happened not to be there at the right time and in the right place. There are similar instances in every sphere of life. It’s not always the most hardworking athlete or the most insightful filmmaker who steals the show.

Second, we underestimate delayed gratification because it is less common and, therefore, instant gratification is a more manageable topic to talk about because of the availability of references and examples around us. People cannot fathom instantaneously the gravity of delayed gratification and its slow but irreversible damage. The craving for instant gratification mostly occurs but is not limited to people under fifty. Thanks to social media and the unbeatable supreme minds collectively at work to disorient us, lessen our attention span, and develop a pseudo or vicarious sense of achievement for a “feel-good swamp” across age groups and demographics, we all are under surveillance. Once we recognise the shortcomings of instant gratification and how it minimises the required gap between expectation and reality, necessary for increasing our happiness quotient, it is possible to rectify the same as we have time. Since delayed gratification, as its name suggests, consumes a lot of time to get materialised, we are grown-up and ‌less flexible to alteration. Initially, it takes time to understand and recognise that we are finally blessed. And here comes the actual shock. We do not feel anymore that we are blessed at all. We want to be grateful, but its prerequisites, the desire for a psychological celebration and the capacity to rejoice, abandoned us long back in our sweet sixteen.

Our mind also grows old. Its senility is an obvious process. Willpower is always not at your beck and call. It decays. A timely panacea is important. The first kiss in your thirties never tastes as sweet as your amateur, anxious and indecisive first kiss of your teenage.