DELAYED GRATIFICATION The inability to delay gratification is at the root of the poverty mentality – Usiere Uko Anytime you find someone who has earned income in the recent past struggling financially, including our good selves, if you trace back in time, there was time money was misapplied due to inability to delay gratification. When money comes into our hands, the first impulse is to spend. Years down the road, the one that delays gratification wins. It really should be common sense but I have come to realize that there is common sense for each level of reasoning. Until you rise to that level, such sense will not be common to you. I remember the story of a traveler in the desert who was almost dying of thirst when he stumbled upon an abandoned cabin with a manual pump at the backyard. Beside the well was a bottle of water with a note on a piece of paper attached. Curious, he opened the note to read. It was instructions on how to prime the pump. He was to pour the water in the bottle down a hole beside the pump and start pumping the handle to prime the pump. He had a tough decision to make – drink the water in the bottle (which had gotten quite warm) or pour it down a hole and prime the pump for water to come out of the well. He realized the bottle of warm water, though may not refresh as much will at least quench his thirst to a large extent. But after the bottle of water, what next? Pouring it down a hole was a risk. What if his attempt to prime the pump fails? He will be back to square one, as thirsty as hell. But again, there is where he will eventually end up long after drinking the water in the bottle anyway. He decided to take the risk. He poured the water down the hole and started pumping the handle of the pump. For some scary minutes, nothing happened. After a while, he heard a sound. Water started gushing out. Clean cool and fresh water. He drank to his fill, filled up his containers, took a cool bath, stayed in the cabin for a while as he plotted his way back to civilization. He delayed gratification. For most of us, we would have drunk down the bottle of warm water and hope for the best. We would be living from hand to mouth, praying for the next bottle of water, no matter how dirty. Our focus would shift from finding our way home to searching for the next drink. We would end up going round in circles, looking for water rather than finding our way home. Sadly, that is the case with most salary earners. Until we let go the bottle of water and prime the pump, we will keep working for money rather than creating assets (accessing the well for water) that will work hard for us. It simply takes ignoring our thirsts for a few moments to allow the water from the well come through.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 07:31:42 +0000
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