Delayed Gratification (Decemeber 11th)
December 11 – Delayed Gratification: At least for today, Purpose-fully wait five (5) minutes before fulfilling any desire or wish … Hungry? Wait five minutes before going to get food. Thirsty? Wait five minutes before getting a drink. Have to go to the bathroom? Wait five minutes before going. Want to listen to your I-Pod or car radio? Wait five minutes before turning it on. Want to call a friend to chat on the phone? Wait five minutes. Finish the day by holding your breath for as long as you can (delaying the ultimate gratification: breathing) … “Simmer” in bed and ponder your new-found appreciation for all you allReady possess …
Note: To get the most out of this activity, it’s important that you wait Meaning-fully (e.g. appreciating nature, watching other people interact, simply sitting and Being Aware of your breathing, etc.). Waiting the five minutes while pining to “get yours” defeats the purpose, as does reading or otherwise “filling the time”.
As I read this task last night, I realized that it seemed to form “part 3” of a 4-part series seemingly designed to reawaken the innate power present in our every moment. December 9th’s task had us remembering that every instant of or lives is independently priceless and that every space is rife with wonderment, yesterday’s task encouraged us to strengthen our power of focus by pausing and immersing ourselves in those moments, today’s task further hones our “latent selflessness” by inspiring us to cleanse ourselves of both the unconscious & conscious desires that keep us from that clarity, and tomorrow’s task allows our True Selves to blossom forth by encouraging us to willfully & joyfully engage every one of our choices in a selfless manner. I’m not sure if this is what I intended when the Calendar “flowed through me” back in 2007, and yet it is nice that these four days combine to guide us towards powerfully re-appreciating our Here&Now.
And with this in mind, I set forth to delay as many personal gratifications as possible today – I purposefully waited five minutes before getting out of bed (and I am a true “morning person”), before taking a shower (and this after a sweaty under-a-down-comforter night’s sleep), before eating breakfast (and it looked soooo good sitting there in front of me), before taking a mid-morning nap (and I was exhausted), before deciding where to spend this afternoon (and I already knew where I wanted to go), before connecting to email in the cool little coffee-shop (and I hadn’t checked in a while), before sipping a delicious smoothie (that looked scrumptious – and I was thirsty), before going to the bathroom (and I reaalllly had to go), before arriving at my winter-walk’s warm destination (and I was cold), before eating dessert (and it looked super tasty), and before going to bed (and very tired, I was).
Each one of these activities were things I wanted to experience immediately, and each one was difficult to delay for its own reasons. And yet, I wondered initially, what was the point to all this? I mean, I ended up doing all the things I waited to do anyway, right?
Well, at first, this seemed like a good point my ego was making. I saw a desire, I waited patiently for five minutes (in the beginning actually counting the seconds), and then I fulfilled that desire. This didn’t feel too good, and seemed kind of pointless.
Then I began to notice a shift in my experience of waiting during each subsequent five-minute delay; from counting the minutes until I cold satisfy my yearning,
to entertaining myself while waiting (I know, emailing was “against the rules” – I only did it once),
to concentrating on “Meaning-full things” while waiting,
to focusing on the waiting itself,
to finally simply Being in each moment (and entering each Here&Now in a similarly powerful fashion to yesterday’s task) …
So, impatiently or obediently waiting at first enhanced the particular desire, and yet when I finally chose to truly attend to a particular moment without thinking of my desired “reward”, such a purposefully extended wait allowed me to relax, whereupon my desire dissipated completely. Ironically, this practice allowed me to then be willing to deeply experience each of the originally desired acts when I finally engage them, thereby allowing me to appreciate them all the more …
And that felt Wonder-full!
As an aside, this concept can be applied in other situations as well; when tempted to respond immediately to an aggressive statement directed at you by another, pause — when tempted to think a critical thought about a “bad situation”, pause — when tempted to “reward” yourself with something unhealthy, pause. This might give you just enough time to set your “autopilot” aside, more clearly evaluate the true worth of the thing for which you are yearning, and possibly choose differently. Either way, you will certainly choose consciously, and that is what today is all about.
See You when I see you …
… and until then, Be Now!
Scaughdt
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