Deferred Gratification

Look back on the last 100 days of your life. For those of you with better records and powers of recollection, look back on the last 1000 days of your life. How many of those days did you spend doing what you wanted to do?

The logical assumption is that the days spent doing what you wanted to do should have resulted in a certain level of happiness. Then it would follow that if you were doing something you didn't want to do then you would be unhappy. Now what if you are doing something that you want to do yet you remain unhappy. Does that imply that you just want to be unhappy? But if you want to be unhappy and then you are unhappy, you are getting what you want, why aren't you happy? Maybe there is no causative loop between fulfilling our wants and being happy. Maybe there is also no relevance between my chain of logic and common sense.

It is extraordinarily easy to be happy. Think of everything that you want, both tangible and intangible, that you may not have yet; an Aston Martin, private jet, a job, a family, the respect of your peers, models, a $60,000 bottle of scotch, a winning mega ticket, a promotion, world peace, a new president, equality for all humanity, etc. etc. Think really really hard and visualize all of these unfulfilled desires, hopes and wishes.

Feel the sand under your toes, the sun warming your skin and a tropical breeze coming off of the ocean as your bank accounts grow faster than the euphoria spreading throughout your body as you realize that everything you've ever wanted is yours. Now hold this moment in your mind's eye to the point where you can almost hear the waves crashing against the shore. The world is yours.

NOW FORGET IT. ALL OF IT. NOW WAKE UP!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU DELUSIONAL FOOLS!

Erase every notion of those wants from your brain. All you have is all you've got. You want nothing and you want for nothing.

Now aren't you just as happy? Probably not. This is why I'm not a therapist.

The original point was that fulfilling all of your desires may bring you happiness, but eliminating them should bring you just as much. Now is it easier to attain them or erase them? Although your mileage may vary I'd put my money on elimination. Who knew those Buddhists were on to something.

The sad part is that most of us do not have the wherewithal to reach either end of the spectrum. Instead we find ourselves endlessly struggling between our ever growing list of unfulfilled desires and our halfhearted attempts at adjusting our expectations to suit our dispositions.

What on earth does all of this have to do with deferred gratification? Well again the only reason why we compel ourselves to do things that we don't want to do; work, save, shower, floss is that we believe or at least we hope that at some point in the not too distant future that we will be able to take a vacation, splurge, sauna and have someone around who doesn't care that we didn't floss. (Sadly there really isn't any way around flossing) We trade the present for the future and cherish the past. We spend the first 25 or so years preparing for the next 50 so that we'll be comfortable and pampered in the last 25. It all seems pretty bleak. Luckily we don't experience life in these large swaths of cynicism. Life unfolds in a series of choices and it is those choices which bridge the distances between all of the yesterdays and tomorrows. Sacrificing 5 days of unhappiness for 2 days of moderate contentment seems like a very -EV play. Then again sacrificing 30 years of loneliness, infirmity and obesity for 30 years of meaningless puerile indulgences, excessive drinking and over eating doesn't seem like a very good move either.

Where does that leave us? Instant gratification is a recipe for eventual disaster, deferred gratification is a recipe for mind boggling mediocrity. For now I'll make due with walking around in chilly concrete and glass canyons wearing sweats while I figure out how to eliminate my penchant for tropical breezes and overpriced hooch.

Since it is the holidays let me leave you with an uplifting message. In case you still aren't sure what happiness is. At least you now have a valid metric for comparison. I can assure you that you were happier before you read this.

Merry Christmas everyone!