BY RUSSELL TURNER
PATIENCE AND MARSHMALLOWS
One virtue that is disappearing in many of our children today is that of patience. Many of us have noticed an increase of this kind of behavior over several years but we cannot blame the kids, they have learned impatience from the adults of today. Most people have the attitude that when they want something they want it now and are not willing to wait for it. That attitude is why many people have huge credit card balances that they cannot pay or why their home is being foreclosed upon. My parents taught me to avoid debt if at all possible. Whenever my parents decided that they needed something for the farm they would skimp and save until they had a good down payment. Impatience and instant gratification may feel good today, but we need to start thinking more about tomorrow.
In the late 1960’s and early 70’s a group of researchers conducted the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. They took a group of kids (ages 4-6) and offered them each a single marshmallow to eat. They could eat the marshmallow immediately or they were told if they would wait for 15 minutes they would be given another marshmallow to eat. There were 653 children in the test, out of that number only one third of the kids were able to resist eating the first marshmallow and were given the second one. Most of the children ate their first marshmallow as soon as the researchers left the room.
As the children grew up additional studies were done and the results showed a huge difference in the success of the two groups. The kids who were able to wait the full fifteen minutes scored an average of 215 points higher on their SATs than the children who couldn't wait. The evidence proved conclusively that the person that could resist the temptation of instant gratification had a better chance of succeeding in life. In business I have found that to be successful one must be able to control the desire to spend everything and save for the future.
I have read several reports that made the point that most Americans have little or no savings for retirement. Many of them are relying upon government entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare to provide them with the money and services they will need later in life. While I am getting closer to retirement age I am having serious concerns about the survival of those entitlements.
Social Security will have ongoing shortfalls and will struggle to pay out all the benefits that have been promised, Medicare is even worse off. Now with Obamacare another drain will be on our economy. Politicians are good at making promises of something for nothing but someone has to pay, sadly there are less people every day paying into the system. I have also read where some analysts are predicting within 5 years most western nations will be experiencing the same kind of financial problems we are seeing in Greece today. Whether we are storing up more marshmallows or dollars the art of patience may be a lifesaver when we have only ourselves to see to our needs.
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