Maybe toasted...

Let’s talk about marshmallows, again.  The classic psychological experiment on delayed gratification (now updated to include data on whether the test subjects trusted the experimenters!) used marshmallows as an incentive.  A child was offered one marshmallow now, or two if he or she could wait five minutes.  The long term outcomes for the kids who could make it through to two marshmallows were much better on many measures.  Guess what we are supposed to do.

But let’s talk about the actual marshmallows.  We are told, or tell ourselves, that lots of things are treats, like marshmallows.  (I have nothing against marshmallows, per se, although I’ve just typed the word enough times that it is sounding weird to me.)  What if we are doing all this work of delayed gratification for something that isn’t worth waiting for?

Let’s set goals that really do give us gratification.  Those goals probably won’t be about marshmallows.  They probably won’t even be about bikinis.  What we probably really want is to feel good, healthy, happy.  That kind of goal is worth the wait to achieve.