What are you waiting for?

The streets are clogged with traffic. Your eyes slide nervously over the magazine rack as you wait your turn at the grocery store. The doctor is behind schedule…Too much waiting! 

But…I guess we don’t have to hunt and gather for our food, which took up a good portion of our ancestors’ time for millennia. Thanks to modern transportation and refrigeration, our kitchens are stocked with edible delights from thousands of miles away, every minute of the day, all year long.  So we’ve picked up some time there.  

Also, we don’t have to wait for the traveling minstrel or the pony express to get our news; it’s ticking down the screen. No more waiting there. And no more waiting anxiously by the mailbox for news from friends and family either.  The social networks on our mobile devices keep us in constant contact. More time saved. Parents outdo themselves and each other to fulfill and even anticipate their child’s every need before the kid even knows he’s hungry, or tired, or needs to be changed. No more time wasted with all that crying.

Yet, we are seeing today unprecedented numbers of children being diagnosed with attention deficit disorders, impulse control disorders and eating disorders. Many people today, across the spectrum of age and class and gender, struggle to focus their attention on long term goals.

Recently, I watched Joachim de Posada's fascinating TED talk on the marshmallow experiment, and I began to think about this concept: Joachim de Posada says "Don't eat the marshmallow!"

De Posada's study actually had its roots in an earlier experiment. In 1972, Walter Mischel, a Psychologist at Stanford University, performed the following experiment:  He sat a four year old child in a room and made the following offer:  “Here’s a marshmallow.  I have another one right here.  If you can sit in the room for fifteen minutes without eating the first one, you will get the second.”  About two thirds of the children ate the first marshmallow.  The other third did not.  

Fourteen years later, Mischel’s team revisited these children. Those four-year-olds who ate the first marshmallow- the grabbers- tended to be young adults who were seen by others to be jealous and stubborn, prone to anger, and easily frustrated. In many cases they were poor students. Those who waited for the second marshmallow turned out to be more competent in several important areas. For the most part, they were socially well-adjusted, trustworthy, and emotionally buoyant. These young adults did well in school, and were effective learners who scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT than their single-marshmallow eating counterparts.

 So the gambit is this:  if you wait, you get a greater reward. Or, you can take a short term gain at the expense of a long-term loss.  In Confucian philosophy, Junzi (君子), the “exemplary person” was distinguished by this very ability to put off the small gains to enjoy the greater rewards later. The concept of Xiaoren (小人), or small person, was distinguished by his inability to do the same.

Many developmental psychologists define maturity as the ability to move from the immature infant who is only able to see his or her immediate needs, to the mature adult who is able to delay gratification in favor of future rewards. Children, in a very real way, are not able to conceptualize time as adults do. Some people, however, exhibit the ability to delay gratification at the age of four, while others struggle to develop this skill throughout their lives.

Those who follow the “grabber” group, what Confucius called Xiaoren (小人), often struggle with various behavioral addictions as they age (nail-biting, skin-picking, gambling, drugs, compulsive shopping, eating disorders or alcoholism). These people fail to see the way that their actions play into the overall scheme of things.  When surrounded by others who are highly critical and judgmental, they may become depressed, and these tendencies are further exaggerated.

Conversely, those people who can exercise self-control, what Confucius called Junzi (君子), are often able to reap the rewards of their patience later, which leads to further successes.

So how can we develop these positive habits?

1-      Spend time with good friends. Seek out competitive yet non-judgmental environments and surround yourself with others who already have these skills in self-mastery. You should be challenged to become your best self through the positive example set by your peers. Change your scenery. Have fun.

2-      Distract yourself.  In Mischel’s study, the children who were most successful in this experiment were often able to distract themselves by singing songs, moving around the room, or looking away from the marshmallow.  Adults can do the same.  When you are temped to eat the marshmallow, engage your mind and body in something else that will bring you positive results: a game, a puzzle, a sport, or a club. B.F. Skinner called this “Changing the stimulus.” Hide the Marshmallow under the table where you can’t see it, and replace it with something else that’s interesting.

3-      Learn to wait.  Patience, like any skill or muscle, develops through repeated use. The more you practice patience, the more patient you will become. Though clearly this ability is heritable, it is also trainable. In recent years, the psychologist Roy F. Baumeister found that groups of people who lived in a disciplined way, engaging in activities such as monitoring their diet, exercising regularly, speaking in complete sentences, and avoiding profanity actually increased their ability to exercise greater control both in the lab and out. Keeping your bed made and standing up straight, as a habit, may actually help people to gain control over significant areas of their lives.

Good things come to those who wait, and tea makes the waiting nicer. Cheers!