Delayed Gratification. Yea or nay?
I was thinking about the philosophical difference people have with regard to how much they dismiss or value hard work. In particular, the concept of delayed gratification. It’s usually seen as a virtue, but I wonder if this leads to controlling our impulses in ways that overemphasise suffering.
Do we — through our cultural conditioning and allegiance to certain groups and institutions — subconsciously or consciously accept and reinforce the notion that there’s “no pain, no gain”? That you have to struggle in order to get anything that’s worthwhile? While I agree there are a lot of good things that come through struggle and sacrifice, I think people are sometimes confused into thinking that they need to go through immense pain to have anything worthwhile. Are some of us more prone to become conditioned to accept bad situations, because we’re liable to believe it’s the only way something good will arrive?
Maybe we get so comfortable with the mindset of delayed gratification that the familiarity of the ‘delay’ subconsciously builds the expectation of a jarring experience, should time for gratification be seized. With this, many of us may well be stuck repeating patterns of behaviour that go unquestioned, and even demonise those who take a different approach. If this is true, could we also progress to denying ourselves the joy of getting what we may very well deserve, because we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that we don’t deserve it?
Do the values within your culture, family, or workplace dictate that suffering is always necessary to attain anything meaningful? Do you think it gets in the way of allowing you moments of relaxation or comfort? Does it cause us to see some activities as guilty pleasures that we really shouldn’t have to feel guilty about? Stigmatised for not meeting a standard, which others rarely meet themselves? For all the benefits of intense competition, does its persistence as a cultural ideal mean we sacrifice gratification at the expense of anxiety, and feelings of inadequacy?
Perhaps the goals and characters and behaviours we’ve come to idolise are inherently antithetical to feeling fulfilled. We’re supposed to believe that caring is of utmost importance, yet we’re encouraged to reach this ideal by showing just how much unhappiness we’re willing to tolerate. Essentially, “If you really loved me, you’d do this thing that makes you miserable.” We lock ourselves away in cubicles surrounded by unnatural light, in clothes that are uncomfortable, for a position which we’ve been conned to believe is what validates our existence and our worth, yet is typically temporary and thus anxiety inducing.
We spend so much effort investing in the outcomes of goals that are symbolic of status and credibility, seemingly draining ourselves of the clarity to see it as a trap. Every ego stroke is a dopamine hit to the pleasure centres of our brain, but without the balance that can be found and nurtured by freeing ourselves from so much judgement, we deceive ourselves into thinking that every spike in good fortune will become the natural state of being, rather than the promise of a drop that leaves us uncomfortably grasping for more, and therefore evermore uncertain about what needs to be done to remedy the resultant shame.
Well, we could drop the shame in the name of common sense, as such a move would empower us to celebrate each other’s successes. This would allow for a releasing of the collective and individual stress that afflicts our societies and personal lives, and would promote a realignment, a balance that offers the awareness to see nothing substantial need be lost in being gratified more easily and more often. The irony is that we’re stigmatised for seeking or attaining certain pleasures, but many of the guardrails we’ve erected to determine who’s worthy of the stigma are what blind us from the beauty, transcendence, and love that make for a happy life full of substance and meaning.
Universal truths about our nature include the application of discipline and structure, which means I advocate for less judgement and more joy as a means to the realignment of the things we actually value; how we treat others, how we treat ourselves, and believe that doing so will allow us to intuit that the things we find gratifying will also promote flourishing and establish structures we enjoy being constrained by, rather than the cynical assumption that people should be rabidly clamouring for pleasure and causing civilisation to devolve to a chaotic hellscape.
With that, I wish you the most gratifying of lives, made up of moments that are delayed no longer than necessary. Ciao.
