The Frugality and Wonder of Waiting

For most of my life I have been an immediate gratification junky and frankly I would still rather have those new shoes right now instead of next Thursday or two paychecks from now. But several things happened to make me change the way I viewed waiting for what I want. First I read some time ago that the sign of maturity is being able to wait for gratification. Ugh! That sentence has definitely plagued me. Then I saw an article about a study done by Stanford University in which they tested whether preschoolers were able to delay gratification by not munching on the marshmallow (the ultimate toddler tempting treat!) in front of them. Turns out some could but what was really interesting is that later studies showed that those toddlers did better in life, had better life satisfaction. Hmm. Also the researchers found that the trait could be taught later on and that those individuals were also happier than their "give it to me now" counterparts.

But frankly nothing drives a point home like real life experience. So I started to notice what would happen if I resisted my urges- be they of the shopping, munching, or imbibing variety- and I discovered several miraculous things. First many of these "oh so urgent" wants simply disappeared in a very short time and left me with a better feeling than if I had engaged in them. Turns out I didn't really want to spend two hours in a mall for a blouse, eat that greasy donut or drink that third glass of wine. Weird. Because not too long before it had really seemed like that activity was truly required if I was going to be happy and yet there I was happy- nay happier- without it. But what was even weirder was how frequently it turned out that the very thing I would have raced out to acquire came to me later in a much more enjoyable way.

Silly recent example, I am redoing our garden box for winter and needed more dirt. I have been delaying because I am more addicted now to the feeling of wonder I get when things arrive in an effortless and unique way than I ever was to the feeling of acquiring it immediately. Last night our friend Laurent came by because he is moving to France and needs to store stuff in our barn and low and behold he brought with him a bag of dirt. So not only did I not spend the money or effort on buying dirt, I got to have a great exchange with a friend about how nice he was for bringing it to us. Wow. This kind of thing happens over and over and I would truly love to hear others' stories because I know it can't just be us experiencing this.

I think our society has given waiting a really bad name- an expensive name, like Muffy or Biff- because in order to be frugal you need to stock up at Cost Co. on everything you might need, EVER, and be prepared. But what happened to the frugality of waiting? And maybe even doing without. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes an impulse is just so fun and so is the satisfaction of fulfilling it. We want a movie and ice cream and we want it now. Blasty blast. But like anything else- too much of a good thing really isn't better. So I now try to be choosier about what impulses I race off to fulfill and which ones I try to give a little breathing room to.

Just had to write about this- right away! Whew.

The hardest thing to do- Nothing

In the song Highway Cafe of the Damned, the Austin Lounge Lizards (thanks brother Eric for getting me hooked) do a pretty good job of listing vices: "sloth and avarice, fornication, television, whisky, beer and wine." Yesterday my husband and I tried to have as hedonistic a day as one can have with kids around. The impetus for this was the fatigue of several weeks of diehard activities with nary a vacation in sight. Suffice it to say that we had no whiskey or beer, felt no ill will toward anyone, and hey, we had kids around. That said it was truly a lazy, rejuvenating day and an incredible learning experience. The idea was to hang out at home but not do ANYTHING productive- nothing of any real value. We watched Star Trek the movie (as our eleven-year-old daughter has become truly obsessed with Spock), then an episode of the original series, ate whatever we wanted (read Nutella and Mac and Cheese) whenever we wanted it (read continuously), played Farkle (a dice game, rules on the internet- don't blame me when you can't stop), read and napped and sipped wine. I have done these activities before so that wasn't really what was so amazing. What turned out to be enlightening is how hard it is to actually NOT do anything productive for one day. I truly think of myself as someone who can laze around at will, so this came as a big surprise to me. Even my type -A husband seemed to take to the slothfulness better than I did. My mind kept searching all day for the thing I should be doing. Laundry, gardening, dishes, meal prep, writing, e-mails, groceries! It was like a periodic alarm was going off warning me that I was missing something. Now I'm not saying I want to live like that but our "do nothing" day did make me wonder when I had become so focused on doing. My husband who was raised Catholic pointed out that what we were engaging in wasn't so much viceful as honoring a Sabath- actually refraining from work, and catching up on rest. Since I wasn't raised religiously I'm not sure what a Sabath is suppose to impart but I think I like the idea. I see a lot of stressed out, exhaused people in this society so maybe some rest days built into the system might be a good idea. I think I would need to eat less Nutella and perhaps move a little more though. Maybe I'll give it another try next weekend!