In praise of instant gratification
Your future self will thank you is a phrase we’re all used to hearing - and probably rolling our eyes at.
It’s intentions are honest enough, to encourage us to forward plan and make sacrifices in the present so we can reap the rewards later on. Save 10% of your income each month and your future self will thank you is a standard example.This kind of forward thinking is how I wrote my book. I can think of no better example of delayed gratification than writing a book. The painstaking drudgery of trying to choreograph so many words over a period of months (potentially years) but then the euphoria that comes once you see those words in an actual book on real life book shelves or in reader’s hands. There is definitely a place for delayed gratification.
But when does planning for the future cross over into robbing ourselves of the present? There’s also a lot to be said for embracing doing what’s right for us right now, especially when we start to unpick the value of time and our inability to control the passing of it. The sad truth is that time feels as though it’s speeding up as we get older. Older generations talk about weeks flying by in what feels like days compared to children complaining about boredom during the school holidays because they feel like the six weeks of summer is lasting an eternity. As a thirty something I sit somewhere in between. Time can very quickly run away with me and unless I put some stringent boundaries in place it can feel like there’s never enough of it. In the same breath I’m very aware that statistically I have a lot of living left to do and the empty space that spans out in front of me can feel incredibly anxiety inducing when I think about how to use it best, what I should and shouldn’t be doing to maximise it.
I recently read 4,000 weeks by Oliver Burkeman and it’s reignited my fascination with the passing of time. “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short” Oliver writes. If we’re lucky we live to 80 and that gives us about 4,000 weeks. He explains how our lack of time propels us into obsession with it and supports our panic over never having enough of it. We try to overcome our own mortality through productivity hacks only to discover time cannot be hacked, there will always be a never ending to do list and we will never have all the time we would like to do everything we’d like to do. We fall into a lull of persistent forward thinking and without sounding too morbid, before we know it our time is up. His suggestion is to lean into acceptance of our limitations, stop trying to do it all because we never will and to choose wisely how we spend the precious time we’re lucky enough to have, to savour it as much as possible through mindfulness, surrender and intentionality.
My most recent struggle with time has surrounded my living situation. As a renter society makes me feel like I’m behind in the homeowner race and I should be both working and saving as much as possible to buy at the earliest opportunity I get, despite whether buying is right for me or not. As a previous homeowner I know the race doesn’t end when we sign a deed. It never ends. I’ll then be made to feel pressured to renovate, extend and upsize. This process repeats again and again until…until I decide. These pressures go way beyond buying vs renting. Should I save up as much as possible so I can retire earlier? Working harder now will mean I can take my foot off the gas when I’m older. Having children earlier in life means mine will start while I’m still young.
Falling prey to all this pressure, striving and forward planning will without a doubt rob me of enjoying the here and now. The harder I work the less leisure time I’ll have. The more I save the less I’ll be able to spend on things like travel, meals out with friends or decorating the place I call home right now. The status quo reassures me that it’ll all be worth it, my future self will thank me - but what about my now self? Doesn’t she have a say too?
My now self has a lot to say. She doesn’t see why she should put all her money into a property when she has a bucket list she’d rather spend it on. She also doesn’t think she’s deserving of grotty rental carpets and a home that makes her feel sad because the decor doesn’t reflect who she is as a person yet she spends most of her time there. She wants to spoil her friend with a lavish gift on her wedding day, decorate the home she’s living her life in right now and if she’s being really honest she doesn’t even see the need to own a home when she’s nobody to leave it to should the worst happen. She’s also full of worry that this kind of behaviour and thinking is selfish, immature and she’ll regret it later.
So who’s right? Fretting over which decision is the right one has caused me more emotional agony than I’d like to admit. If I had a few more lifetimes to live it wouldn’t matter to me so it’s definitely my limited amount of time that adds the pressure. I can’t do anything about this as a mere mortal. The paradox of choice is deafening in these situations. The more choices we have the harder we find it to choose. But not choosing is also a choice. Surrendering to the fact that our time is limited and we will inevitably make bad choices we will later regret can shed some relief onto the situation. If we at least make a choice then we can be done with the anxiety and live with the consequences. Personally, I’m a fan of choosing what feels right now.
I’m not saying we should all scrap any future plans, adopt a purely live for the day mentality and live every day as if it was our last, though if that’s your approach to life and it suits you then by all means go for it. Future goals to work towards are wonderful and as I said earlier there’s a lot of satisfaction to be gained from them. I do however think we need to take some time to remind ourselves that there’s a lot of life happening right now and it’s beautiful and valuable and we can easily miss it if we’re not careful. The present is here just waiting to be enjoyed. Enjoy it!
We can’t predict the future. None of us know how long we will live for and I think that’s as strong a argument as any that we should ground ourselves in the here and now. The present holds incredible value and it’s yours to do with whatever you choose. As we only have so much time to savour and there is of course only so much we can squeeze out of our present, once this is done perhaps this is the time to move onto our future selves. As always there seems to be a balance to strike and the way to do this is by tuning into our intuition and opening up those channels of communication with ourselves instead of taking society’s word for it. We can always choose to take a leap of faith back to ourselves and then catch ourselves when we inevitably fall.
So next time you find yourself deprived of pleasure in the moment consider bringing yourself back into the present moment and catering for yourself now. I took the leap and decided to make my rental cottage beautiful because it’s where I’m living right now and for the foreseeable future. I started with the kitchen (you can see a before and after here) and I’ve enjoyed it so much since that I decided to make some more changes that will cost me more money, time and effort. I’m okay with this potentially being a mistake. I’ve been sensible in terms of budget yes, but this would’ve made sense had I owned the house too. I’ll deal with buying at a later stage, or never - who knows, but when I shut my laptop I know my tonight and tomorrow self will thank me for the clean, comfortable cosy atmosphere I’ve created to enjoy.
