My case against Instant Gratification

Instant gratification is all around us, no matter where I look it seems that I cannot get away from it and I hate it. You need to look no further than get-rich-quick schemes, miracle diets or the growing need to have everything at our fingertips as proof.

I think instant gratification is killing our future and the hope of a future. Instant gratification implies that we will never be enough or have enough and that we should expect anything and everything right away and if we do not see or get what we want it has been a failure. It neglects the long-term vision, success and ideas that truly form real success. Instant-gratification is not sustainable.

We will never be enough or have enough with instant gratification because once we get it, we want more and we want it now. In fact we cannot possibly get it fast enough. If we get one thing in a minute everything else now needs to be under a minute or it is taking too long. This goes for not only material things but things like love, success and relationships.

If you are always focused on what you want right now, you will never think about your future and how you want to get there and instant gratification only allows us to focus on the present. Think about it in terms of living a healthier lifestyle or wanting to lose weight. In the moment it is so easy to eat that piece of cake because it will make you feel great, yet in the long term it will hinder your goal not help it. That is the problem with instant gratification; it puts the long-term against the very short-term.

The shelf-life of instant gratification is just that an instant. It is gone in the blink of an eye and a majority of the time you have nothing left to show for it. What you get from it is the want for more and to be more, do not get me wrong I am a strong believer in constantly improving but putting it all in an instant is not the right way, it takes time.

So what should we be doing instead of wanting instant gratification? We should be setting long-term goals and realizing the small victories that come along with them. I believe we need to celebrate our successes but we need to see them as part of the bigger picture. If you have a dream write it down and think of everything that leads up to it. These can be your milestones to celebrate. Success takes time. The success you see is just the tip of the iceberg. Just like an iceberg it is not the tip that you have to be worried about or that has the most mass it is what is beneath the surface, it is what you cannot see, when you see success remember that there is an iceberg beneath it supporting it. Finally remember how awesome you are and that you have an amazing gift to give the world.