"Delayed Gratification" - Which types have too much or too little of it ?

[ThatGirl]

Ok, I do this all the time.


Was it as good for you as it was for me?

 

[sarah]

I always thought "delayed gratification" meant willing to wait for some greater payoff. Your example is good self-discipline but not really what I think of as "delayed gratification". Are they getting more satisfaction from the dessert than they would if they ate it earlier? Not really.

If given the choice between having something great now, or having something even better later, depending on what it is and how long I have to wait, I usually prefer to delay gratification. I'm generally a patient person who understands the importance of holding out for a big payoff.

This is so funny -- I'm an SP, which means I supposedly can't handle delayed gratification, and yet I totally agree with Kestrel on this. Go for the Big Payoff, people. It's very often worth it. I'm not talking about indefinite waiting, either -- just delayed gratification, in which you can forsee rewards in the near future but you just have to wait until the time is ripe. Just make sure you don't get distracted and miss your opportunity to savor the payoff to the fullest when you finally get it.

 

[creativeRhino]

Thanks for the input, this is great. Now I see that I am not the only one,

CreativeRhino, you seem happy about this, you don't feel stifled at times?

Like you are giving up too much?

How do you manage to stay happy about it?

Stifled? No. The funny thing is while I am saving up for one thing, sometimes I get a better / different idea and go do that. I'm not "single minded" about many of my plans/ideas. I often have a few scenarios I work towards and then choose one when I've got the $ required.

When I was at Uni I had so little $ I always worked out ways of talking myself out of getting something that I didn't really NEED, even if I wanted it...

I've often been put under peer pressure to not be so "conservative" financially/materially. I used to work in a very high paid corporate sector - and everybody was just going out and buying what they wanted when they wanted it. There was little pause for thought because money wasn't the issue while things boomed. They were always getting rid of really good old stuff that was now outmoded by a year or so... I still have the stereo system I got when I finished University! I could buy a new one, I could afford a new one but I just don't NEED a new one. Yes, I'd be quite thrilled to play with a new thing, but then the thrill would wear off. In material "goodies" the thrill of the new short lived, and for some people very addictive. I watched this cycle with many of my work mates.

Travel and adventures and learning are what excites me. I collect experiences not *stuff*. I started being a regular traveller 25 years ago and now try to do a big (2 month trip) every 2-4 years. A decent trip is not a cheap thing, and you need to be disciplined and not let sudden urges for a "new toy" bleed the bigger goal's. I know a lot of people who never get what they say they really want because of distractions. They say "oh, you are so lucky you can afford it" but they earn more than me, they just use it differently. I've always lived well within my means so I can save.

Ultimately the only thing we can't replace in life is time so the less time I spend in life working just for $ need the better. I want to retire and do more adventures!

In the last 10 years I've done a couple of the "trips of a lifetime" - one to Namibia and the other to the Galapagos. They didn't disappoint!

 

[Kyrielle]

This is so funny -- I'm an SP, which means I supposedly can't handle delayed gratification, and yet I totally agree with Kestrel on this. Go for the Big Payoff, people. It's very often worth it. I'm not talking about indefinite waiting, either -- just delayed gratification, in which you can forsee rewards in the near future but you just have to wait until the time is ripe. Just make sure you don't get distracted and miss your opportunity to savor the payoff to the fullest when you finally get it.

Agree, with both you and Krestel. However, I always make sure I get little small rewards along the way that don't effect the Big Payoff so I feel like I'm making progress. It really helps to break down the path to Big Payoff into smaller, managable goals so that when I reach one, I can celebrate and then dive right in to making the next goal.

 

[Moiety]

Delayed gratification? Is that, like, tantric sex?


Seriously though, I suck at this. Whenever in doubt the voice inside my head reminds me I could die any second and that life is about the simple pleasures anyway.

Too bad my dreams require heaps of delayed gratification

 

[King sns]

I can't do this AT ALL.
If I want gratification of some sort, I want it now.

It is by far probably the most difficult part of my personality that I deal with. I've had to learn a few tricks to get around it since it causes me to procrastinate like nobody's business.

 

[me_plus_one]

I can do that, but only when it's necessary. I can easily lose a few pounds, but generally, if I want something, I have to have it now! I might not want it anymore in the next seconds.

 

[sarah]

Agree, with both you and Krestel. However, I always make sure I get little small rewards along the way that don't effect the Big Payoff so I feel like I'm making progress. It really helps to break down the path to Big Payoff into smaller, managable goals so that when I reach one, I can celebrate and then dive right in to making the next goal.

Yes, exactly! Nothing wrong in rewarding yourself along the way as you pursue your ultimate goals.

 

[Salomé]

I can do that, but only when it's necessary. I can easily lose a few pounds, but generally, if I want something, I have to have it now! I might not want it anymore in the next seconds.

The perils of being a P. This is why I can't plan effectively.
Just because I want something today, doesn't mean I will tomorrow. How can I possibly know what I will want in 6 mths time? I envy people who can seriously answer the question: where do you see yourself in 5 yrs?
Is this part of being a P or is it just not knowing yourself well enough I wonder?

 

[sarah]

The perils of being a P. This is why I can't plan effectively.
Just because I want something today, doesn't mean I will tomorrow. How can I possibly know what I will want in 6 mths time? I envy people who can seriously answer the question: where do you see yourself in 5 yrs?
Is this part of being a P or is it just not knowing yourself well enough I wonder?

It's developed use of Ni, AND it's related to knowing yourself (Fi). I'm very good at knowing myself, and am working at being better at forseeing how I want to be in the future.

 

[Simplexity]

I think there are definitely strong corollaries, especially with NPs. I generally have impulsive long term goals in that in the moment I try and envision as elaborate a plan or scheme as I can muster. I usually cycle a couple of those in the short term until I get sort of a vague outline of what it is I'm interested in. Once I have that I can indulge more full heartedly without guilt on short term pleasures.

I think utilizing your long term planning strategies has to take in to account your temperament. I don't think a large majority of Ps can try and encounter questions like that with the certainty, precision, drive, and adherence that Js can. The self knowledge comes in knowing just how your energy is best invested. My dad and sister INTJ and ISFJ respectively are the kings of that kind of planning, they are notorious in my family for being stingy when it comes to their plans and always having something long and short term they're striving towards. I think it has tie ins with how you reference and recall things. I hate the way my sister thinks of things. It's very evident that her mind works in an objective, check point fashion. She needs the constant verification that what she is doing is "right," she really has trouble with accepting the fact that she can act when there is a large amount of uncertainty.

My dad is similar to an extent but he is much more apt to deal with that internally based on his 'systems' and then proceed to outlining and taking action. When he's in the process of working he likes to have a tightly defined area and attack it in little compartmentalized bits. He is very hard to sway if he sees that he is making consistent progress and is achieving notable results.

What I've realized over the years is that I preform much better and more consistently when I leave myself time to experiment a bit so I can see the scope of something. I know if I hit a particular monotonous snag I will disengage pretty quickly and my output will slow significantly. So I try to get enough coverage to the point where I can easily switch off and recuperate my energy and then engage again if I see it is worthwhile. I always need to have multiple possibilities because I know no matter how much I try, how invested I am, and how serious I am, that I will in the short term always seek greener pastures. So I try and build a plan that takes that into account. It's most certainly not 5 years. More like a series of 1 year plans that leaves me room to fall back on and select a course of action I can really get involved in.

 

[garbage]

Is it considered "delayed gratification" if you typically don't care enough about the present to think about not making sacrifices for the future?

If so, then yes. I have way, way too much delayed gratification, and I'm sure many (but not all) ENTJs can attest to the same. This whole "living for the moment" stuff is something that I actually strive to do.

 

[dee]

OK so I guess it really depends on what your goals are, or what the person is waiting for.
Of course I can see how it would be hard for a p because they can't plan that far ahead.

Now I realize that it seems that my problem is not the delayed gratification, but the fact that even when I do have a certain goal, it isn't always what I find fun or what will make me happy, instead it's what I need to do - the responsible thing to do....

It seems that my goals are never THE GOAL, it is not the thing that will bring me the happiness, but the beginning of a series of other goals. When maybe somewhere at the end of the tunnel is the thing that will actually bring me happiness....

So no wonder I feel stifled...

I don't even know what to call this, anyone else have a similiar scenario going on??

Thanks all for the input till now.

Best Wishes, Dee

 

[FDG]

Is it considered "delayed gratification" if you typically don't care enough about the present to think about not making sacrifices for the future?

If so, then yes. I have way, way too much delayed gratification, and I'm sure many (but not all) ENTJs can attest to the same. This whole "living for the moment" stuff is something that I actually strive to do.

This is somewhat more similar to how I am. I don't really consciously delay gratification at will - it's just that sometimes I place zero importance on the present, so I do things that look like "delayed gratification". But I dislike thinking about it as a sacrifice - I'm choosing what I want to do.

Btw, on a broader scope, there is nothing inherently good in consistent delayed gratification; typically, it can be thought as a maximization problem subject to some constraint: we want to maximize our happiness, and the constraints are that we live a finite amount of time (so the risk of dying before the gratification has to be taken into account), and the presence of people that do not want to delay gratification (which adds to the risk, because the circumstances that allow us to think about a "goal" might suddenly change and we are left with nothing). So, the process I undergo when I have to decide if to delay gratification or not is to use check and balances and see if my expected increase in happiness will be worth the two risks outlined above.

 

[miss fortune]

Delay?!?! :horor:

Life is too short to sit around waiting for things.

 

[Salomé]

^ heehee! Why did I know you were going to say that?

 

[miss fortune]

^ because I'm the poster child of hedonism perhaps?

 

[garbage]

...

I agree and empathize completely. I suppose "what others would view as sacrifice" would've been more appropriate, because those "sacrifices" are choices that I make that I believe are in my personal interests. At this stage of my life, though, I'm making fewer and fewer of those choices, trying to live more for the immediate moment.

You don't happen to have an operations research background or something of that nature, do you? Because that's probably the terminology and thought process I would've used if I'd expounded

 

[entropie]

When it comes to food the results are zero delayed gratification .

When it comes to taking the flag, because I am on the site of truth, it becomes more difficult.. :/

 

[LucrativeSid]

I just strive for some sort of balance... I'm a pleasure seeker and I like to live for the moment, but I'm not reckless or stupid. I know some things require a bit more time and patience.