A Letter from Chris Suarez
EVEN AMAZON CAN’T SAVE YOU
Exactly one year ago to the day this week the director of the World Health Organization announced the following: “We have therefore made the assessment that Covid-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.”
Very few knew what that meant. What they did know was that the future seemed uncertain. Airplanes were grounded. Borders were shut. Basketball arenas were emptied mid-game. Office buildings were locked. Schools were let out.
Uncertainty hit an all time peak across the US and the world. Grocery store shelves emptied. Millions of dollars of cash were pulled from savings accounts. Stockpiles of beans, rice, water, toilet paper, and I hope toothpaste showed up in basements, garages, and crawlspaces. Frozen chicken and peas filled the freezer. Personal protective equipment was unattainable. Even the seeming beacon of certainty - your Amazon Prime account - couldn’t save you.
un·cer·tain
ən-ˈsər-tᵊn
“Not clearly defined. Not clearly or precisely determined. Not constant. Indefinite. Not reliable. Ambiguous. Undependable.”
There have been countless lessons learned over the course of this past year. Some welcomed. Others unwelcome. Some brought joy and gratitude. Others pain and hopelessness.
Uncertainty tends to push us toward the need to be instantly gratified. It leads us down the broad and clear path of instant gratification. And when things don’t happen instantly or as expected, stress, anxiety and frustration elevates.
The early work of behavioral psychologist Walter Michel and the “Marshmallow Test” identified delayed gratification as an almost necessary skill for success and a key to being a well-adjusted adult.
More contemporary work by Celeste Kid at the University of Rochester actually points to the fact that delayed gratification is a learned skill, one that is built on the foundation of trust. When we have certainty in our worlds, it is easier to exhibit the valuable skill of delayed gratification. Why? We are certain that outcome we are looking for will arrive. This certainty allows us to build patience, resilience, and allows us to delay the outcome or gratification. The four and five years olds back in the Bing Nursery at Stanford tested by Michel and able to withstand the ever-tempting marshmallow clearly had some consistency, some rhythm, and some trust built in the first four or five years of their life by their parents, their close relatives, or their caregivers.
Delayed gratification is built because we are certain, or we trust, that continuing down the path that we are on will lead to a reward. However, when all of us a sudden we began to doubt that pinto beans would be on Isle 6 the next time we rolled our cart thought the grocery store, all heck broke loose. When suddenly we began to doubt that there’d be a roll of toilet paper on the ready next time we walked down the hall to the restroom, we instantly needed to buy every roll we saw.
Instant gratification causes human beings to do some very bizarre things. It causes us to eat entire boxes of cookies. It causes us to watch 8 hours straight hours of The Bachelor. It causes us to scroll through airbrushed photos of food belonging to people we don’t even know for hours on end on Instagram. It causes your Amazon delivery driver to know you and your pet by first name.
Why? Because humans search for certainty. And if one area of our life has been uncertain for too long, we will find certainty elsewhere. We will look for ways to meet our expectations. We do that through any guaranteed distraction we can find. Nir Eyal, behavioral engineering specialist and author, writes that “distraction is the inability to deal with emotional discomfort.” I assure you delaying gratification - not getting what we want when we expected to get it - is uncomfortable. This leads to us looking for and choosing distraction.
Expectation is one of the strongest forces on the planet.
When we have a trip planned, the expectation of arriving there often pulls us through the hard work we need to accomplish in order to get there.
When we are in a positive relationship, the expectation of what we emotionally receive from it will pull us through the hard work of building that relationship.
When we have a baby on the way, the expectation of welcoming a new life into the world will pull us through the hard work of changing almost everything about our daily life to prepare to welcome the new one.
When we trust our expectations, it brings focus, commitment, energy. What happens when all bets are off? What happens when we just can’t put our finger on what we should or shouldn’t expect?
Lack.
Lack of motivation.
Lack of willingness to do the hard work.
Lack of delayed gratification.
An ancient proverb says “Expectation delayed is making the heart sick.” Many have felt sick over the lack of certainty in their future this past year. Not being where we thought we’d be - whether financially, geographically, emotionally -
One of the biggest lessons learned over the past 12 months has been the importance of building trust in process. Building trust in people. Building trust in ourselves. The trust allows us to set our expectations appropriately and live into them.
Look for the clues in your life where instant gratification is showing up... the cookies in the pantry, the Netflix recently watched, the Amazon boxes in the garage. Instant gratification won’t save you. Uncertainty is a constant.
Find your certainty.
Chris