Delayed gratification?
If you had a choice to receive £4000 or £2000 which would you choose?
What if you could have £2000 now, but had to wait three months for the higher amount? Which would you choose then?
It's an interesting quandary.
Why would you choose what you have?
My guess is that most of my readers would choose the second option as it makes common sense, doesn't it?
This is how many of us live our lives.
Delaying gratification.
It's the method of self-regulating our behaviour, managing life around us.
It's easy to see it in the above exercise.
What about this one:
You have been at work all day, it's raining hard on your way home and you are tired.
On your way home in your car, you can go to the supermarket and buy food for four adults that is ready made and just needs heating to serve. This will delay your arrival home by 20 minutes and costs £18.00.
Or you can go directly home, prepare and cook a healthy meal for four adults that takes you 30 minutes and costs £3.50.
We make these decisions all the time, don't we?
Again, I know which decision my readers will make most of the time.
The third scenario is the real one.
A virus is in the world that attacks human lungs causing many of them to die from pneumonia.
There is no vaccine or cure but some people suffer and survive.
It is safest to stay at home unless there are essential journeys locally to make - such as picking up medication or food.
People are urged to stay within their family bubble and not to mix with others from another household.
They are urged to wear facemasks over their mouth and nose as this is how the virus attacks humans.
The virus spreads easily when humans do not follow these rules.
Or people can act as if there is no virus, socialising, travelling and acting without any care or attention for not just contracting the virus, but passing it on to others.
They risk their own lies as well as people they will never know.
I find it hard to understand the decision many people will make.
This is not delayed gratification, it's just bl***y stupid.
Stay safe,
Tracey xx
I genuinely think some people are convinced they're abiding by the rules but are kidding themselves.
ReplyDeleteI had a conversation with someone close to me recently who is convinced they have just stayed at home. They've been on holiday, including having someone not from their household in the car, they've been to the pub, people have been into their house "just for a minute", they went into another house during lockdown to help our with something, as well as all the other general interactions we have day to day. Reality and belief are quite far apart for some people at the moment!
Unfortunately there is a core of selfish people who will always object on principle to being "told what to do" even when it's in their best interests. Unfortunately their actions affect the rest of us too. I don't know what the answer is.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, you have expressed this so perfectly. In our country there is a company J.P. Wentworth, (call 877 cashnow - catchy little jingle.) It's for people who have won cash settlements from accidents or whatever that are to be paid out over time. It shows a young man sitting on a couch in a messy room while his mother (?) comes in and begins collecting his laundry and his pizza boxes, etc. He complains that he needs his cash now! "It's MY money and I need it now!" Everytime I see it I hate it. All the company is doing is making money by collecting from the settlements of greedy people. They have plenty of business however, because people do want everything now.
ReplyDeleteI had never connected this instant gratification thing to our inability to follow the simplest rules to protect our fellow humans.
I think you are on to something. We are living in sad days. I am so tired of people who turn this into a government plot to deny them their freedumb.
I think that Debby has hit the nail on the head with the word 'freedumb'!
ReplyDelete