on not getting what you want

Delayed gratification is extinct. Well, maybe not quite extinct yet, but definitely on the Endangered Traits list.

Delayed gratification is really hard for me. I get impatient at the smallest and dumbest things: when my web page takes more than 5 seconds to load. When I'm picking up Sam and have to wait more than 30 seconds for him to come out. When I'm in a line and there's a problem with the customers or cashier ahead of me. When a student takes more than 10 seconds to tell a story when we're in the middle of a math problem.

I don't think it's just me, either. (Although if you think you're worse than me, think again!) We live in a society that's increasingly centered toward the here and the now. In TV shows, problems that take a lot of work, effort, and time in real life are wrapped up nicely in a 20-minute episode. Ads for faster internet and data streaming speeds teach us to be impatient and dissatisfied with our current speeds. "Treat yoself" has become the rule rather than the exception.

Look at Twitter and other social media. We don't want to read about anyone or anything unless we can read it in 140 characters or less. We buy cars, homes, and phones we can't afford because waiting and saving up for them seems so terribly boring and distasteful and slow. We get fat because we can't say no to the food of here and now, and then we take pills to lose weight because we don't have patience to work it off through diet and exercise. There are certainly many people in our society who have infinite patience and practice delayed gratification regularly, but for the most part, I think we are getting less patient, and less content to go without.

I've been trying to practice my delayed gratification lately. Part of it is in preparation for grad school coming up - the ultimate delayed gratification test! Talk about giving up everything to get something better two years down the road. (Right? It will be worth it? Somebody reassure me.)

So, I gave up eating sweets for Lent. 

Let me back up to elementary school. One of my best friends convinced me to give up candy for Lent one year, so I did. Although I think I kind of missed the point: I never said no to candy. Instead, I hoarded it all in a big grocery bag and greedily ate it all on Easter. Talk about world's biggest stomachache! 

My church doesn't officially observe Lent, but I've done it a few years since the grocery bag hoarding incident of 1998. It's more about patience than penitence for me, but I think it's really meaningful for people of all faiths. This year, I said no to sweets, desserts, candy and sweetened drinks for the 40 days preceding Easter. Occasionally I'll steal a bite of Sam's dessert or sample his lemonade, and once I ate a few M&Ms before I remembered I'm not eating dessert these days, but for the most part, I've been really good about saying no to sweets. (Writing this blog post without snacking on the treats was really tough!)

Going off sweets is such a simple and small thing, but I learned about delayed gratification. Taking a step back. Realizing that I don't need to eat everything I want, when I want. Realizing it's good for humans to practice patience, to not always get what they want, to learn that happiness doesn't depend on how much you have, or how quickly you obtain it. Recently, in our family, there's been something Sam and I really wanted that we didn't get (more on this later), and, weird as it sounds, this little insignificant practice of abstaining from sweets has helped me be okay with the bigger things we want but can't have right now. This is a huge deal coming from the person who gets impatient if the light turns green and it takes the car in front of me a few seconds to start moving!

That being said -- putting these Cadbury Eggs in Easter baskets without sneaking any was torture. I am so looking forward to eating them on Sunday! 

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Do you practice Lent?

What do you give up?

Is delayed gratification a lost art?