Photo by Zoe Holling on Unsplash

We, humans, have come a long way.

From hunting animals to feed our stomachs or working all day in fields growing crops… to now eating instant noodles and overfilling ourselves with chips & soda during our midnight cravings for food.

We have hardwired our brains to race after something which gives us instant access and pleasure.

Participating in the lottery

Using credit for our every purchase

Eating the exact second we feel hungry

One tap payments

Groceries delivered to you under 5 minutes

Using tinder to find a partner instead of physically going out

are all examples of instant gratification in our daily life.

To put things in perspective, we are living in a paradox of a world where we feel if a thing looks and feels good, it is good.

When you buy an iPhone on EMI for 36 months being a college student, you let instant gratification win.

Remember those Saturdays when instead of going out, you were slouching on your bed, watching football highlights, and gulping down chip after chip?

It was an initial pleasure, but you did wake up feeling grumpiness in your stomach due to the high salt intake.

When scrolling through too many reels on Instagram decreases your attention span over time and you have a hard time focusing and studying.

Do you think the ones out there who made it big in life became big by following such a lifestyle?

Take a second to think and reflect.

Yes, you are correct.

They didn't.

Those actors, sportspersons, and entrepreneurs you look at as inspiration didn't let their minds indulge in instant gratification.

Let me explain to you the terms you must be most familiar with.

Remember, those summers when you bought ice cream from the nearest store but it melted till the time you reached home?

Chances are that yes you did.

Then, you had two options.

Either eat that melted, warm, distasteful ice cream right away or freeze it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes and then enjoy it.

If you chose the latter option, you understood delayed gratification since that damn day.

Delayed gratification is the price you pay for a life you dreamt of.

There is no hesitation in thinking that a price has to be paid for a life full of luxuries.

Because this is the truth.

Let me kindly present you with a cold, slapping-your-face fact.

If you can't immunize yourself from the temptations of instant gratification, you will find it very hard to find success in either health or wealth.

Chasing delayed gratification teaches you discipline, sacrifice, persistence, and commitment.

Mastering delayed gratification means you don't get stumbled by the quick pleasures of life which when experienced repeatedly messes up with our brain's functionality.

According to writer Dan Koe, mental masturbation refers to -

The process of raising dopamine in the brain by telling people your goals, plans, and how you want to change but never actually doing anything about it.

(You can read this in his tweet here)

Reading without writing.

Organizing your study table but then scrolling on Instagram.

Buying expensive running shoes when never actually going running.

In the last two cases, the object(human) mentally imagines doing work, feels happy about it, but then does nothing about it.

The intermediate action of "feeling happy about it and thus releasing dopamine" is what mental masturbation refers to.

The famous psychologist, Micheal Presley reviewed the effectiveness of self-verbalization(telling yourself that waiting is good) and external verbalization(being told to wait) on kids.

The kids who participated in the experiment experienced higher resistance to everyday temptations as adults compared to others of the same age.

The catch here is - Put more effort into actually doing the work required compared to the effort you put into imagining the future.

Whether you succeed or the effort goes in vain, it doesn't matter.