Instant Gratification – The Silent Killer
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One of the most recent research has revealed that 87% of the people in Sri Lanka, employed in the senior management level are either having diabetics, high blood pressure or they are obese. Reports also expose that 25% of Sri Lankans are diabetic patients at present, and the figures are expected to be doubled by the year 2050. 15% of Sri Lankans were at risk of being affected by Diabetics without any warning, instant gratification is killing many across the world whether it be in the realm of physical health or in the area of mental health. One way or the other at some point in life we all have readily invited this silent killer “Instant Gratification”. The reality seems so harsh, thus the tendency to avoid it has become habitual to our five senses.
Though many students yearn to get through their examinations, they are not equally prepared to study hard by sacrificing various means of temporary satisfactions. Likewise, many individuals are fond of having a healthy physical appearance, yet they are reluctant to avoid consuming junk food and drinking carbonated drinks that are full of sugar. Your body will always seek the shortest route available towards pleasure. However, the shortest route towards pleasure will make you want to escape the realistic route towards sustainable and long lasting pleasure. You cannot get through an examination without studying, you cannot build your own house without working hard and earning money, you cannot possess a healthy physique without working out continuously.
The shortest cut is always the route which your five senses would be pleased to indulge with pleasure, at the very moment of time. Instant pleasure or instant gratification always comes with a bundle of detrimental harvest. Many people in the present day opt for alcohol, cigarettes and other dangerous drugs believing that it could help them to avoid stress, fear or defeat. The catastrophe of instant gratification is that it is addictive and it blindfolds people on its impact. When someone consumes alcohol as a temporary method of overcoming stress, he naturally becomes blind to cirrhosis, which is a highly detrimental physical condition in which your liver is scarred and permanently damaged. Instant gratification always opposes long term success as it displays only short-term relief. Once you allow it in to your system, you will always opt for it, as it is free of commitment and adversity.
However, you become addictive to it, naively making it your first-choice despite the challenges that you face in life. Instant gratification deviates people from striving for their dreams. Life will always offer you two paths for every decision that you make in life. One is the narrowest and most difficult path which is “What do I want the most”, the other will be the broader and the easiest path which is “What can I have now”. Unfortunately, people give up what they want the most because achieving it demands a lot of sacrifice and hardship, whilst the remaining option is always easy and instant in gratification. The result of ignoring instant gratification is the achievement of long-term satisfaction. A large population of the youth have even selected instant gratification to meet their sexual desires at the cost of losing the ultimate pleasure they could experience in married life.
The recent generations are seeking a lot of quick fixes at many circumstances in life not knowing that they are influenced towards a life of misery and failure. When you reject instant gratification, you are training your body – mind and soul to give up on things and feelings which are satisfactory temporary. Thereby you mold yourself to endeavor towards achieving dreams in real time with hard work, perseverance, endurance and self-awareness. You will never get to know yourself by escaping the reality because self-awareness could be achieved only by facing the challenges, not by escaping them. Running away from challenges will never help you to discover yourself. T
herefore, don’t respond to your instincts towards instant gratification, rather train yourself to strive for the most beneficial path. For example a packet of instant noodles will not only steal the goodness of a healthy meal but it will also gift you a bundle of sicknesses which will be irrevocable at the point of suffering. As Darren Hady once said “Achievers don’t submit to instant gratification; they invest in the long-term payoff”.