The Marshmallow Effect: The idea of sacrifice

The modern usage of the idea of sacrifice..
everyone understands the motif.. it's that
if you want to make things better.. in the future..
then you should make sacrifices in the present..
and maybe you even do that multi-generationally.

everyone understands that.. and it's part of being responsible and mature..
and you do that for yourself too if you're disciplined..
in fact that's almost what discipline means..
discipline means that you're capable of making sacrifices..
because you're not disciplined if you just do something you want more rather than something that you have to do.

discipline is when you want to do something right now..
and instead you think no I'm going to forestall my gratification.
and you concentrate on something that you think will bear fruit..
in the medium to long run.. and so you look into the future..
and you decide that by making today a little less impulsively pleasurable.. you'll make tomorrow a little bit more secure and productive..
and then you actually do it too.

here's a cool psychological study..
it's called the marshmallow test.
you take small children.. you bring them into a room and you put something
that they would like in front of them (marshmallow).
"you can have that marshmallow right now..
or if you wait 10 minutes.. then you can have two marshmallows" and then the experimenter leaves.

they're being asked to trade an actual tangible marshmallow..
for two hypothetical future marshmallows..
and it's not that easy to conjure up a hypothetical future reality..
that has the same tangible significance as something real right in front of you and so it's amazing thing that people can do that.

what i see in that.. is that the child's prefrontal cortex..
the higher cortical systems are warring with the underlying motivational systems..
more primordial motivational systems that govern such things as hunger..
the hunger system..
hypothalamic system says "there's something sweet and fat right sitting there right now grab that thing"..
hypothalamus has these tremendously powerful tendrils upward into the brain into the parts that we would associate more with voluntary control..
and the voluntary control centers have these little weak ribbons going down to control the hypothalamus..
it's pretty obvious if you know something about neuro-anatomy what part is actually in charge.. when the chips are down
and it's not easy for children to learn.. to regulate those underlying primordial impulses.

the cool thing is this is what Walter Michelle (the experimenter) found..
that the long-term outcome for the children who can delay gratification in the marshmallow test is much more positive..
than it is for the children that are impulsive and eat the marshmallow instantly.

With ❤️️ SuperHindustani