Delayed Gratification...

I'm bothered by alot theses days; gone are the carefree days of youth, and in their place I find a deep sense of responsibility... Not all bad but not nearly as fun as my younger days. It occured to me, during one of these "responsible pauses" that a great deal of our financial troubles as a nation is a result of our loss of a very important concept- Delayed Gratification.

We have become a nation, no a world, of peoples demanding instant gratification. The video posted a few blogs below pretty much says as much in a humorous way, but don't miss the message because you're laughing... We are a people of "I want", and want it now, and as a result we manipulate our finances, our circumstances, our lives to get it now. And that is unhealthy in ALL areas of life. Learning to delay gratification, to wait until we can afford, or fully appreciate, or handle our wants is far more healthy. As a country we could learn to curtail our spending, to balance our budgets, to simplify our lives again, and become healthy as a nation. All too often we pursue what we want only to find that, after getting it, it really isn't what we want, and even worse, need. Had we waited, and truly assessed our needs versus our desires we very well might have passed on it altogether...

This current generation is expected to be the first that will not be better off than the one before. Why is that? They have the latest in technology, they buy the desires of their hearts until their credit is maxed out, they get what they want, when they want. In a word, this generation is spoiled, and spoiled rotten. More twenty- and thirty-somethings find themselves BACK living at home, trying to get back on their feet, trying to re-establish themselves, trying to save money to pay off debt, than any other generation in history. Why? They never learned the art of "Delayed Gratification".

Let's look at the grandparents of this generation: Hard working, loyal, and frugal. Our grandparents knew the value of money and spent only when they could afford to. They delayed their desires until they could afford them, thus appreciating them all the more, because they were EARNED. Today nothing is earned. It's bought on credit, often sold with more owing than it's worth, only to add to an accumulating debt. Young people don't unserstand "saving for a rainy day". So where was the breakdown? It's in the parents of this generation- and the cultural breakdown we experienced in the sixties and early seventies when children becoming of age rebelled against their parents and those ideals that made them strong. Those ideals were viewed as restrictions and a whole "do what you feel" culture was born. Out of it came irresponsibility- financial, cultural, personal irresponsibility. The tenets of our forefathers were cast to the wayside and a new, far more amoral, irresponsible culture arose. Today we are paying the price with a generation of spoiled, over-indulged, underprepared, "non-contributing zero(s)", (as the comedian below labeled them).

We will not rise out of our current situation until we re-learn the art of Delayed Gratification. We need to re-learn loyalty, and responsibility, and fiscal restraint, personally and as a nation. The grass is always greener over the septic tank, but there's a bunch a crap you can't see below the surface. It isn't always wise to pursue "greener pastures" until you dig down a little, investigate, and make sure you aren't pursuing a load of , well you know... Delayed gratification can and will help us avoid alot of mistakes, if we're willing to take the time to re-learn this lost art...

Food for thought...