Ep. 24 - Delayed gratification: living & working for the long-term [5/5]

Over the next five weeks I’ll be doing something a little different. I'm shifting away from the quick, actionable posts to more robust and philosophical articles. The reason behind this pivot is two-fold. First, I don't think there is enough content covering the interconnectedness of work, life, and hereditary adaptations. Second, the actionable lists, motivational posts, and general 'get it done' attitude conveyed in many of my posts doesn't work for all. For some it's daunting and frustrating. So, with that being said it's my goal to shed more light on why I hold such strong beliefs in many aspects of work, and life. This stems from much of the reading I've done on stoicism, history, and the human body. As for the title, well, we're wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure, which is inherently short-term thinking.

Humans are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. We long for immediate satisfaction. We are the most impatient species, which is only getting worse as time passes. The combination of impatience and immediacy of gratification is deadly. It's deadly to our physical and psychological well-being. Our high time preference forces us to think for the immediate moment and maximize our current state. This can take the form of overeating, lack of exercise, and lack of capital accumulation or savings (i.e., you seek immediate gratification, therefore you spend all your money = high time preference. Low time preference is someone who accumulates wealth for the future and exercises, as they're aware of the benefits).

Humans have always held a high time preference. However, this has never been more evident than over the last decade. People seek the dopamine hit immediately. That’s what we’re trained for. We’re trained to have instant feedback. So, what happens when the feedback is one week, one month, or one year (or ten)? Most of the time it leads to self-defeat and surrendering to our goals.

Don’t take a knee. Don’t wave the white flag. Focusing on the long-term provides an insatiable purpose in life. You begin to develop hyper patience and hyper rationality. This is exactly where you want to be.

An example would be an investor. If you’re a ‘long-term investor’ then do you really care about the last 12-weeks (i.e., a quarterly report)? Not really. Do you care about the stock tanking 5% in a day/week? Nope. However, this prudence takes sheer patience and rationality to succeed.

Similarly, exercise is painful in the short-term, but long-term there are more benefits than the human-race can even describe. Yet we have an obesity problem. Why? Eating is easy. Moving is hard. Plus, benefits from exercise are not outwardly noticeable for the first 10-12 weeks (likely longer). You need hyper patience to succeed. This ability to stick to your goals and resist temptation is often referred to as willpower and/or self-control. And delaying gratification appears to play a central role in those attributes. The ability to put something off now for the hope of something better later is the most important skill one can cultivate.

Walter Mischel's experiment

Walter Mischel performed a brilliant and simple study on the art of delayed gratification in the 1970s. I'll quickly explain. Mischel placed a treat/snack in front of children and then offered them a choice. First, you could enjoy the treat. Second, you could wait a moment to get two snacks, or a better treat. So, when the experimenter left the room most children ate the treat immediately. These children that ate the treat immediately had a high time preference.

However, some of the kids were able to put it off and wait for the better treat. What Mischel noticed was that the children who delayed gratification ended up succeeding to a greater extent later in life. They were more physically fit, less likely to suffer from depression, and had higher SAT scores, etc.

This is an astonishing stat. It proves a very important principle: play long-term games with long-term people.

Why are we so bad at this?

I believe It’s the possibility that it won't happen. What I mean by this is the possibility your goals, your dreams, and your passions won't come true. You'll "fail". It's this uncertainty that makes giving up the quick and easy rewards so difficult. The amazing treat, or the steady salary is right in front of you, right now. But, that delicious, beautiful cake is just 10 minutes away. And that business you dreamed of is only 5 years away (and who knows, maybe a $10m exit). We are terrible at thinking about the future.

So how do we overcome this? At some point if we want success in any field we will need to put in the work. We'll need to delay the immediate gratification and put in our reps. Sounds easy, but it's extremely challenging. There is really no way of getting around it. If you want greatness, then you must seek it.  Currently, many people are window shoppers (2021 version). They listen to podcasts, read books, consume, consume, and consume some more but don’t take action. Taking action is hard.

It doesn’t have to be that challenging though. Improve one thing, by one percent, every day. Adopting this strategy decreases the resistance many undertake when attempting to accomplish goals.

Don’t break the chain. Start stacking consistent days - day in and day out. Ignore results and focus on the process.

Delay the gratification.