The effect of instant gratification. That is the reflection of the day. This concept is one that I was thinking of yesterday where I had a very busy day. When I got to, I was staying with my boyfriend, and I got to his house, we said, “Okay, what are we going to do next?” The choices were, “Well, we can lay down, watch a movie and probably fall asleep because we were both tired or I was in the mood for running.” I struggled with the decision. Do I go running or do I go and just lay down with my boyfriend and have an enjoyable time watching a movie and relaxing. Obviously, that was the instant. I would get a lot of instant gratification for doing that. The other one of going running was delayed gratification because it was cold, I was tired and I was going to be challenged by going to run in the conditions that were outside. But I was there for a moment where I remember this concept of delayed gratification vs instant gratification. I realized that in most of the later parts of my life, I would say, I concentrated a lot on the short gratification. Because when we’re living just on instant gratification and I think this is the concept that gets us in trouble many times because we just want to, for example, eating. Well, we just want to eat because it feels good instantly. Then, we get the results of that instant gratification and we start gaining weight and you start feeding more and those 5 seconds of joy then, turn into a whole day of feeling guilty about what I ate and how I feel and when we can obtain and control and create harmony between delayed gratification and instant gratification. Then, we can create more balance and more enjoyment, I would say, in our lives. So my decision was that I was going to go running. Right after I struggled for a little bit with the fact that it would feel so good to just lay down and watch a movie because it’s cold outside, because I was feeling tired. But I just put on my clothes and I said, “I am going running and I’m going to do three miles. That was my goal and I was going to go to this park in New Jersey that has a beautiful lake and I was going to figure out a way to enjoy this running, you know, decision that I made to the fullest. So I did end up going running and I did the 3 miles. The energy that I felt right after that, that is the delayed gratification that I’m talking about. Where you know that you are going to feel so much better after you decide to make the right choice for yourself, even if you have to wait to see the results of that choice. So today, I invite you to look at your life and see what are the things that you are concentrating on getting instant gratification that are hurting your life? Then, start switching it to the delay gratification. What are the things that you can do opposite of what you are doing that are going to lead you into better results and more happiness? We can all reflect on this because we are all guilty of having an imbalance in the delayed gratification vs instant gratification. Let’s reflect, reset and reconnect.
