I sit here with my comfy yellow chair and laptop, presented with a marshmallow conveniently placed within fingers reach of my keys. Why might you say? What an awfully good question that would be. I'll let you wait for the answer though, because this lesson boys and girls is about marshmallows. Actually no, its about about many things, but certainly not about marshmallows. Specifically, about DELAYED GRATIFICATION.
Enough play; simmer down. Sit around. I watched a quick TED presentation the other day. A professor at Stanford University had discovered something which he, and others believe this simple test (sink or swim) is the key for success. The test goes as follows - using not rats but our fellow young generation as the guinea pigs this time. These rodents -- er, humans, were placed in a small room with no windows, tables or anything, except for chair to sit on and a marshmallow. They were told to stay in the room for the 15 minutes with the marshmallow, and provided it wasn't in their digestive tract in the time they checked again, they would be given a second marshmallow. Then again it would multiply every time they opened the door in 15 minutes, and soon would have more.
Result? 1 in 5 succeeded for the test for the first 15 minute segment. The others --- we cannot say where it went. Magic? No! They ate it. Terrible.
True for adults and coffee.
So taking this simple expletive, concern yourself and do likewise! I'm not saying test yourself with marshmallows like I am, but it be a good reminder. The Marshmallow is happy with its life, observing the screen; not so much concerned now about the threatened longevity of its positive long life.
The success principle I believe can be taught. Eg. When I was young, i saved the best foods for last on the plate. The logic was that the taste of the better tasting foods stayed after the meal was finished, thought it didn't matter because desert was always after! :) No one told me to do this either, as far as i can remember.
I believe its very important to teach this to our children in small ways though. Although you can only suggest this principle, and its an act of heart to follow through on these little tests, it will cause carefully inflection on their own motives and reasoning.
The follow up of this test was that 100% of the kids who succeeded at this simple test, were successful in their lifes, and in many areas. If you consider that, when i say "many" -- thats strange because usually people are strong in some areas and not in others, but they had well rounded influential lifes.
I would hesitate to say, that if any of you did this test of your children, this certainly would not suggest the path of their future lives. I would say that it would be a good idea to first encourage the importance of delayed gratification.
Thinking about the mechanics of this principle is strange. How simple it is, we could say. But how hard it is! It is true certainly that God does bless this way. To one who has many, more will be given. There are many parables suggesting this, but the easy choice is the parable of the talents. I don't know how to really start on how this works, but lets leave the glory for God.
The most interesting part is the word "gratification" though. We tend to fantasize the magnitude of benefit(s) this "marshmallow metaphor" has for us. Is it really that good? We need to gratify the lack, but how often do we know what is good for us?
The stimulus for sensual pleasure is a fine balance. Its so easy to go over. Hard to go under, unless we tune ourselves precisely to our bodies, which in this case we can substitute the word 'body' for 'holy spirit' being our gauge and guide. My roommate for example is very particular of his food consumption, down to the olive size. I'm sure that has benefit for the stomach. His will overrides his love of the food since he loves olives.
Experiment: Lets remove the word pleasure, for pleasure in a food analogy could easily be referred to as being gluttony, being generically bad. What if we celebrate our blessing of abundance by sharing it to neighbours. By the way, the mana goes bad if you keep it longer then a day anyway. Success! A new form of strange happiness! Exchanged from a personal goal, its now relational. Now, if we did the same test for the trees, or the birds of the field; wait -- here is the connection! ----We can see God in -anything- the more we affect -anything- in a symbiotic way.
So I suppose thats my simplified understanding thus far in written form, only to emphasize the importance of this for all the readers, since many of you are raising or going to raise young ones. Forgive me for calling them rodents. ( All jokes ;)
Now I'm hungry.
