I was at the mall a few weeks back for a little shopping. As I walked from aisle to aisle browsing at the items for sale, I suddenly stumbled upon a scene. There was a child throwing a serious tantrum. She was about six years old and giving her parents a difficult time. She was screaming on the top of her voice and pointing to a particular piece of toy she wanted. All entreaties by her parents to make her see reason fell on deaf ears. She just kept screaming and screaming. Her mother in exasperation told no one in particular. “She always demands for what she wants. And would not relent until she gets it.”
I was tempted to say something because I saw a potential trouble looming. But I wisely kept quiet. It was not my call. I was not close to the family. They were random strangers that I happened upon and I have to be careful especially in this era when everything is always taken out of context. Nowadays, it doesn’t take a village to raise a child anymore. It’s always each to his own. People operate different value system in today’s world, it was no longer a central value or a general belief anymore.
The particular scenario took me back to my own child hood and I understood the value of waiting. And the pain even associated with it. And how those value system helped shaped my future especially when I am forced to pass through a period of waiting and working towards an expectation. In childhood, our parents taught us the value of waiting. When we asked for something, especially things of luxury and not an absolute necessity, my parents did not provide for it immediately. They told you you had to wait until it was convenient for them to get it done or provide it. You therefore begin to hope for it and when it finally comes, there is a deeper appreciation and gratitude and a conscious effort to prevent that toy or book or whatever the gift was from getting spoiled or lost.
I have observed that most times people who get what they want so easily have a hard time appreciating same. I stand to be corrected. It’s human nature. There is just that part of humans at least most times to attach little importance to what they get easily but value so highly what we toil for.
I learned waiting as a child and that strengthened me for the future. I learned to accept disappointments and get over them. I learned to tough it out during my waiting periods.
I call the instant gratification prevalent among today’s youth” the microwaved life”now everything has to be microwaved almost instantly. Everything must be achieved there and now. There is no patience or experience or waiting. The ostentatious life time on social media gives people a run for their money. Every one wants to live large. No one wants to count the cost. No one wants to pay the price. And we wonder why there are so many attempts to take a fellow human’s life to achieve wealth. There are so many diabolical means deployed now. The latest in the trend is trading in people’s natural hair for a fee. From stealing and snatching of underwear at gun point or under armed threat to now stealing natural human hair. Anything and everything to get instant wealth. The ostentatious life has caused untoward damage to a lot of people with depression on the rampage and quite common among younger generation. There must be serious counselling to educate young people that it’s never too late to achieve anything and that they are not carried away strictly by what they see on social media. I like to call it packaging. Everyone lives their best life on social media and we only expose our finery and not our dirty linen and the sooner this is realized the better.
They need to know that patterning one’s life after the things on social media is nothing but a fluke, a road that leads to nowhere. This I believe would greatly reduce the high rate of depression and suicides and also help them to make better choices.
When instant gratification is encouraged by parents on their children , there is a multiplier effect in the society because what they breed are groups of physiologically imbalanced children who cannot stand any competition and who believe they must destroy everything and everyone along the way to arrive at what they want. A group of monsters that ultimately become more powerful than their creators.
Teaching our children the value of waiting for things is never old fashioned. Denying them instant gratification is not out of vogue. Allowing them to understand delayed gratification is not out of point. When we adopt this sometimes, we are helping to build a mentally secure and stabilised child who can effectively cope with the challenges of life during adult hood which is not a tea party.
and then