You Can't Delay Gratification Forever

At some point you've got to eat the damn marshmallow

images from pinterest, collage by me

About seventeen years ago, when I was thirteen years old, I fell in love with a small, silver necklace in a store. It was a little cluster of silver beads that looked like grapes dangling on the end of a delicate chain. It was fifty dollars. Being thirteen, I did not have fifty dollars. So I asked my mom if she would buy it for me. She said no. But as an unemployed shopaholic, “no” was just the kicking off point of negotiations for me. I begged. I needled, shamelessly, not even caring that my mom’s friend was in the car listening to the entire debasing exchange as we drove home from the store.

After about five minutes of badgering, my mom’s friend turned to me and said, “Have you ever heard of the Stanford marshmallow experiment?”

I had not, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

If you, like thirteen-year-old me, haven’t heard of the experiment, here’s how it went: In the 70’s a psychologist at Stanford named Walter Mischel conducted a study on delayed gratification. Children were given a marshmallow. They were told that if they did not eat the marshmallow for fifteen minutes, they would be given a second marshmallow and they could eat both of them. They were then left alone in a room for fifteen minutes with the marshmallow. Some kids were unable to resist and ate the marshmallow. Some kids waited, earning a second marshmallow.

In the years following the experiment, researchers kept track of the marshmallow kids. They found that the ones who had successfully delayed gratification—not eaten the marshmallow in order to get the second marshmallow—outperformed the participants who had been unable to delay gratification in SAT scores, educational attainment, and more. The ability to delay gratification, the study claimed, was one of the single most important indicators of future success.

After my mom’s friend got done explaining the experiment to me, I was so angry I could barely speak, which is why I remember the incident vividly to this day despite the nearly two intervening decades. My face was bright red, my hands balled in tight fists at my side. Of course, I knew I was being a spoiled little shit about the necklace. But her explaining delayed gratification to me felt like a slap in the face. I was only thirteen, and I was already a master of delayed gratification—in a way perhaps no kid should be, but so many are.

I went to a rigorous school, and spent hours every night and on weekends completing homework and studying for tests. Even though we were at the beach, I had spent the entire morning before we went shopping, studying. I was a distance runner, and I would force myself on grueling long runs around my neighborhood, tracking my pace on a Garmin twice the size of my wrist, urging myself to go faster, faster. I swallowed the pain of excruciating shin splints, knowing my efforts would yield results in the future at meets, maybe even at states. I skipped playing American Girl Dolls with my sisters, going outside, playing Mario Kart or the Sims 2, and watching TV, to do homework, because I knew the short-term sacrifice would pay off in the end.

All the years of delayed gratification in middle school and high school, often sleeping as little as six hours a night to complete the impossible work load we were assigned, on top of multiple sports, extracurriculars, volunteering, and time to break down and cry from stress would pay off when I got into a good college. THEN I could enjoy myself.

And it did. I got into a good school. But when I got there, I realized I really needed to knuckle down and delay gratification once more to secure a good job. I took a heavy course load, multiple majors, multiple minors, a job, an internship, extracurricular involvement. Did I occasionally miss out on some of the non-academic aspects of college? Yes. But it would all be worth it when I got my dream job in New York City. THEN I could enjoy myself.

And then I got my dream job and moved to New York. But I didn’t like my “dream job.” So I threw myself in fashion blogging. Working sixty hours a week in consulting, I woke up early in the morning to shoot photos before work and spent the nights holed in my bedroom posting on socials. The magical New York City life whizzed past my West Village window, while I locked in. If I could just work really hard at this blog and make it a legitimate source of income, I could quit the consulting job I hated. THEN I could enjoy myself.

The fashion blog never took off, so I took off to another city, enrolling in a program called Urban Teachers in which I was placed in a title one DC school to teach during the day for eight hours and then attend masters classes for three and half hours at night Monday through Thursday, lesson planning, grading, and doing my own homework on weekends. It was a grueling schedule, but it was only for two years, and at the end I would be a fully credentialed teacher with a masters degree finally doing something that mattered. I just had to delay gratification one more time. THEN I could enjoy myself.

But my masters graduation came and went, and I still wasn’t happy. I became obsessed with getting back into writing. At the end of a physically and mentally exhausting day of teaching, I would come home and force myself to write. In the two years of teaching after my masters, I wrote two novels. I wasn’t liking teaching, but if I could just get good enough at writing to get into an MFA….I think you all know what’s coming at this point…say it with me…THEN I could enjoy myself.

I did get into several MFAs, and I called my mom to discuss the options with her. I had narrowed my acceptances down to two schools I was choosing between: Columbia and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

I was monologuing about the pros and cons of each school when my mom said, “Caroline, don’t go to Columbia.” It came out of her in a rush, like she had forced herself to say it.

“What, why?” I asked, taken aback. It was unlike my mom to offer such specific advice. Normally, she would talk things through with me, trusting me to make the right decision for myself.

She sounded like she was about to cry as she said, “Honey, I just wonder when you’re ever going to just slow down and enjoy your life. It’s passing you by, and maybe, at the beach, it would be possible to take it a little slower, to finally sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

Her words hit me hard. One of the most important values my family had impressed upon on me was hard work. My mom worked three jobs all through college to pay for her degree in cash. My dad still works insane hours every week. I had always thought there was no such thing as working too hard. But my mom was right. Hard work should have a purpose, an end goal. Hard work is not a religion, but I had made it mine.

So, I chose UNCW. I want to be clear. I do not think Columbia’s program is any harder or more rigorous than UNCW, but I knew I would have to work harder if I attended Columbia, because, due to the NYC cost of living, I would likely have had to work multiple jobs in addition to my course load just to survive. UNCW, by contrast, offered me a modest stipend that provided just enough to get by in a town where a tall-boy of PBR is $2.50¹ and my rent is $750.

But the instinct to delay gratification, to sacrifice enjoying the moment in pursuit of some amorphous future when “it will all be worth it,” is a habit that’s hard to squash. Even when I got to UNCW dead set on finally slowing down and trying to enjoy my life, I had to actively resist my near-pathological urge to collect accomplishments and resume line items. I had to resist the urge to sign up for the school literary magazine. Instead, I use that time to sit on my porch and read. I resisted the urge to enroll in the additional classes you can take to earn a graduate certificate in publishing. Instead, I use that time to take long walks on the beach with my dog and junk journal, a new hobby I’m completely obsessed with. One of my favorite professors offered me an opportunity to assist him in his research, which would have meant more money and an additional line item on my resume, but I said no, leaving time instead for date nights with my fiancé. I do not work on Friday nights or Saturdays, which may just sound like a normal weekend to some people, but to other delayed gratification addicts, you’ll know what a big deal that is. It’s not that I’ve quit working hard. I still work hard at the things I care about—like my writing. It’s just that I’ve moved “slowing down and enjoying my life,” higher up on my priority list. No longer is gratification something that I’m willing to delay, to tack on the very bottom of my to-do list as something I’ll get around to when I have more time. I falter all the time, but I am trying now, for the first time in my life, to make gratification as urgent a concern as my career, my success, my accomplishments. Because what higher accomplishment is there than enjoying one’s life?

Here’s the thing. The cycle of delaying gratification will never end, unless you end it. There is great value in delaying gratification, but at some point you have to lift your fucking nose off the grindstone and start enjoying the life you’ve worked so hard to create. Otherwise, what on earth have you been delaying gratification for?

To quit the habit, you have to start living life more slowly. You have to start saying no. Sometimes, you have to prioritize your happiness in the moment more than you prioritize your future success and accomplishments, because if you don’t, that happiness and gratification will just be continually pushed back.

Part of what fueled my cycle of delayed gratification was desire for prestige. I wanted to attend a prestigious college. I wanted to secure a prestigious job. I wanted to earn a masters from a prestigious university. I wanted to appear prestigious to “people.” But, let me tell you, the people you’re hoping to impress aren’t thinking about as much as you think they are, if at ALL. And those vague “people” don’t have to live your life every day. You do.

One of the flaws in the marshmallow experiment is that the kids only had to delay gratification for fifteen minutes to reap a reward, but extrapolated out over a lifetime, when there is always another marshmallow to be had if you can just wait fifteen more minutes, there is a danger of drowning in a room full of marshmallows never having eaten a single one.

I was telling a friend about this essay, and he said, “So what’s the answer, then? When do you stop delaying gratification?” And I couldn't answer him. All I can say, for me, is that it was a gut feeling. I was exhausted and felt like life was passing me by—that it had been for too long. If you’re young reading this, you might still be at the point in your life where delaying gratification is the right thing to do. The years in which I delayed gratification laid a solid professional, academic, and financial foundation that allow me to enjoy myself more now. But if you’re in your late twenties, thirties, forties, and you still haven’t allowed yourself to start living, are still pushing towards the next thing, and the next thing, the next thing, I’m here to say that there will ALWAYS be a next thing. There will always be something that seems worth the sacrifice of temporary happiness in pursuit of a more lasting contentment. But if you live your whole life that way, the only lasting thing will be work and more work, on and on, forever.

As I write this, I’m twitching a little, grating at the idea that you might think I’m lazy, that I am somehow being lazy. But I know I still work hard. It’s just not all I do anymore. There are days when I work hard, and days when I sit back and enjoy the fruits of my hard work. I prioritize peace over prestige. I’ve stopped delaying gratification. After three decades of delayed gratification, I’ve decided it’s time to eat the marshmallow. And it tastes fucking great.

Scientists conducted a second version of the marshmallow experiment in 2020 to challenge the predictive power established in the 70’s study. This newer study, conducted with more participants and across a more diverse array of children, found that delayed gratification had half the effect on outcomes demonstrated in the earlier study, and subsequent studies have indicated even less correlation with future success.

Even as I was writing this essay, my cousin knocked on my front door. He’s in town for Easter. He’s having a beer on the beach. Do I want to come join him? My first instinct says no, that I promised myself I would finish this essay today. But I can finish it later. For now, the beach calls. And, at long last, I'm not going to delay my gratification.

1. My fiancé informed me that the week I wrote this, our go-to bar raised the price of their tall boy to $3.00. Tariffs!! Ugh!