The Lure of Instant Gratification

“If by giving up a lesser happiness a greater happiness could be found, a wise person would renounce the lesser for the sake of the greater” – The Dhammapada

“Alexa, play Cant feel my face…”, my daughter requests whilst doing her homework, the order is taken and the song is played, instantly. If she has video on her mind, she visits Youtube to quickly search whatever she desires and it plays, again instantly. I try to gauge how the eco-system has changed entirely from my childhood days when we had to patiently wait probably every Sunday to tune into the latest videos and songs. Although there is no denying that technology has made the Human life very convenient, I wonder if these technological advances make the younger generation more susceptible to instant gratification syndrome. Or could they be less susceptible than our generation who almost suddenly saw this plethora of options explode in front of us, I am not sure.

One of the amazing videos I watched recently on Youtube was “Why Procrastinators Procrastinate” by Tim Urban. He talks about an instant gratification Monkey that takes charge of the procrastinator’s mind and deviates the course towards more convenient, fun-filled and quick pleasure options. With the humongous sea of information available at a mere mouse click or finger swipes, this instant gratification monkey only gets more empowered. I showed this video to my daughter, she loved it too and now we use the monkey analogy to try to minimize the detours we both take, quite a lesson. I highly encourage everyone to watch this with their kids.

In terms of food, the instant gratification a.k.a cravings are well understood. Fast food joints provide us a range of delicious but unhealthy options. Bakeries and super markets churning out pastries and processed food to delighted customers. Everybody knows the negative impacts of gulping down these delicious savouries, yet the lure of instant gratification is too enticing. Its highly recommended to eat good protein and vitamin rich vegetables and fruits, but not all are “satisfactory” to our well developed taste buds. People are becoming creative in preparing delicious dishes out of mundane veggies, which is good, but I believe there is still long way to go here.

In a capitalistic economy, where consumerism is thriving and socially encouraged, the instant gratification monkey is spoilt for choice. With plenty of e-commerce platforms from where to shop, with most striving hard to deliver as soon as humanely possible, the instant gratification lure for materialistic pleasure takes a whole new leap. Social networking sites and instant messaging applications, known for their dopamine effect on our brain have been working overtime to systematically demolish our already weak attention spans. The urge to do everything instantly, read & respond to messages, update pictures, share stories has increased tremendously.

No where else does this behaviour hurt us more than in the financial world. Rather than painstakingly going through the various options for a decent long term investment, we take easier route of spending money for materialistic pleasures and investing in get-rich-quickly schemes. One of the key take-away from the book ‘Richer, Wiser, Happier’ by William Green that I recently read is to focus on a long term vision: “in a world thats increasingly geared toward short-termism and instant gratification, a tremendous advantage can be gained by those who move consistently in the opposite direction. This applies not only to business and investing, but to our relationships, health, career, and everything else that matters“.

In a world of instant noodles, instant coffee, instant messengers, and with even more avenues springing up to divert us to “quicker” routes, it becomes ever so challenging to keep the instant gratification syndrome at bay. A great pivot to consider is this wonderful message from Sadhguru “If everything that you ever wanted in life just fell on to your lap right now, would you be able to live with it?“. Let’s explore how to stay unwavered on the long term vision of what we want from our lives. As William Green brilliantly writes “the richest rewards go to those who resist the lure of instant gratification”.