DELAYING GRATIFICATION.

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live. 

This process of scheduling is learned by most children quite early in life, sometimes as early as age five. For instance, occasionally, a 5 year old when playing a game with a companion will suggest that the companion take first turn, so that the child may enjoy his or her turn later. At age 6, children may start eating their cake first and the frosting last. Through out grammar school this early capacity to delay gratification is daily exercised, particularly through the performance of homework. By the age of 12, some children are already able to sit down on occasion without any parental prompting and complete their homework before they watch television. By the age of 15, such behavior is expected of the adolescent and is considered normal.

It becomes clear to their educators at this age, however, that a substantial number of adolescents fall far short of this norm. while many have a well-developed capacity to delay gratification, some 15 or 16 years old seem to have hardly developed this capacity at all; indeed, some seem even to lack the capacity entirely.  These are the problem students. 

Despite average or better intelligence, their grades are poor simply because they do not work. They skip classes or skip school entirely on the whim of the moment. They are impulsive, and their impulsiveness spills over into their social life as well. They get into frequent fights, they become involved with drugs, they begin to get into trouble with the police. Play now, pay later is their motto. So the psychologist and psychotherapists are called in. but most of the time, it seems too late; these adolescents are resentful of any attempt to intervene in their lifestyle of impulsiveness and even when this resentment is overcome by warmth and friendliness and a non-judgemental attitude on the part of the therapist, their impulsiveness is often so severe that it precludes their participation in the process of psychotherapy in any meaningful way. They avoid all important and painful issues. So usually the attempt at intervention fails, and these children drop out of school, only to continue a pattern of failure that frequently lands them in disastrous marriages, in accidents, in psychiatric hospitals or in jail.

Why is this? Why do a majority develop a capacity to delay gratification while a substantial minority fail, often irretrievably to develop this capacity?  

The answer is not so absolutely, scientifically known. The role of genetic factors is unclear. The variables cannot be sufficiently controlled for scientific proof. But most of the signs rather clearly point to the quality of parenting as the determinant.

PROBLEMS AND PAIN !

Life is Difficult! -   As absurd as it sounds, this tends to be a great truth, one of the greatest truths.

It is a great truth because when we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult- once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Those things that hurt, Instruct.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species and not upon others. 

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them? What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving them is a painful one.  Problems depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief of sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair. These are uncomfortable feelings, often very uncomfortable and as painful as any kind of physical pain. Indeed, it is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us all that we call them problems. And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as Joy.

Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. 

 Problems are cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our Courage and our Wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school, problems are deliberately set for children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklyn said, “Those things that hurt, instruct”. It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.

Most of us are not so wise. Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems. We procrastinate, hoping that they will go away. We ignore them, forget them, pretend they do not exist. We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them, so that by deadening our self to the pain we can forget the problems that cause the pain. We attempt to get out of them rather than suffer through them. This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. In any case, when we avoid legitimate suffering that result from dealing with problems, we avoid the growth that problems demand from us. It is for this reason that in chronic mental illness we stop growing, we become stuck. And without healing, the human spirit begins to shrivel.

Therefore let us inculcate in ourselves and in our children the means of achieving mental and spiritual health. By this I mean let us teach ourselves and those we love the necessity for suffering and the value thereof, the need to face problems directly and to experience the pain involved.

 

Now the Question: How do we deal with problems and the pain associated with problems? Are there any tool(s) required to solve life’s problems and suffering?

Please post your comments and opinion on this. 
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THE CHRISTMAS GUEST

It happened one day near December's end, two neighbors called on an old-time friend and they found his shop so meager and lean Made gay with a thousand boughs of green.

And Conrad was sitting with a face a'shined when he suddenly stopped as he stitched a twine and he said: Old friends at dawn today when the cock was crowing the night away, the Lord appeared to me and said 'I am coming your Guest to be' So I've been busy with feet astir and strewing my shop with branches of fir.
'The table is spread and the kettle is shined and over the rafters the holly is twined. And now I'll wait for my lord to appear and listen closely so i will hear his step as he nears my humble place and i open the door and look on his face'.

So his friends went home and left Conrad alone for this was the happiest day he had known. For long since his family had passed away and Conrad had spent many sad Christmas Day but he knew with the lord as his Christmas Guest, this Christmas would be the dearest and best.
He listened with only Joy in his heart and with every sound he would rise with a start and look for the lord to be at his door like the vision he had a few hours before.
So he ran to the window after hearing a sound but all he could see on the snow-covered ground was a shabby beggar whose shoes were torn, and all of his clothes were ragged and worn. 

But Conrad was touched and he went to the door and said, 'Your feet must be frozen and sore. I have some shoe in my shop for you and a coat that will keep you warmer too'.
So with grateful heart, the man went away. But Conrad noticed the time of day. He wondered what made the Lord late and how much longer he'd have to wait.
When he heard a knock he ran to the door, but it was only a stranger once more, a bent old lady with a shawl of black with a bundle of kindling pile on her back.
She asked for a place to rest. But that was for Conrad's Guest. 

 But her voice seemed to plead Don't send me away: Let me rest for a while on Christmas Day'.
So Conrad brewed her a steaming cup and told her to sit at the table and sup. But after she left, he was filled with dismay for he saw that the hours were slipping away.

And the Lord hadn't come as he said he would, and Conrad felt sure he had misunderstood when out of the stillness, he heard a cry. 'Please help me, and tell me where am I!'
So again he opened his friendly door and stood disappointed as twice before. It was only a child who had wandered away and was lost from her family on Christmas Day. Then he led her back to her hoke once more, but as he entered his own darkened door, he knew that the Lord was not coming today. For the hours of Christmas had passed away.

So he went to his room and knelt down to pray, and he said: 

Dear Lord, why did you delay, what kept you from coming to call on me? For I wanted so much  your face to see.

When soft in the silence, a voice he heard: 'Lift up your head, for i kept my word.

Three times my shadow crossed your floor,

Three times i came to your lowly door, for i was the beggar with bruised cold feet, i was the woman you gave something to eat. And i was the Child on the homeless street.
Three times i  knocked: Three times i came in, and each time i found the warmth of a friend. 

Of all the gifts, LOVE is the best; I was honored to be your Christmas Guest.                                                                                                              (Author: Andy Griffith)

HEART TOUCHING QUOTES (2)

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
— Mother Teresa

 
"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."

— Mother Teresa

"Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it."
— Mother Teresa

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours."

— Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."
— Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words)

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
— Thomas A. Edison

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
— William Shakespeare (All's Well That Ends Well)

"An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind."

— Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth)

 

 "It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not."
— André Gide

 "Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
— Mark Twain

 "Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."
— Albert Einstein

 "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one."
— Bill Gates

 "It is our choices, Harry, that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

 "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
— Albert Einstein

 "A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left."
— Marilyn Monroe

 "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
— Albert Einstein

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind."
— William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
— Confucius

 "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."
— William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)

"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it."
— Mark Twain

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
— Winston S. Churchill

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."
— Aristotle

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” - André Gide

 “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

 - Henry Ford

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

-T.S. Eliot

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

 - Albert Einstein

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” - Einstein

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.” - Voltaire

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.” - Emerson

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” - Emerson

“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.” - Nelson Mandela

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” - Leonardo da Vinci

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.' " - Muhammad Ali

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

 - Pablo Picasso

“Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.” - Machiavelli

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” - Winston Churchill

“It matters not the number of years in your life. It is the life in your years.”

 - Abraham Lincoln

“No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess” - Newton

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves.” - Blaise Pascal

“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” - Buddha 

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