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.