Avoiding an Instant Gratification Attitude

We live in an Instant Gratification society!

Every day, our minds are bombarded with messages that not only can we instantly get what we want, but that we deserve to instantly get it. In the words of one of the all time most successful commercial jingles "You deserve a break today."

Advertisers spend millions of dollars every day convincing us that we can have every desire met instantly – even the needs we create by our own inappropriate conduct. Eat the wrong foods or too much? No problem, pop a pill for instant stomach relief.

Advertisers are effective. They must be, or this multi-billion dollar industry would collapse. They must be effective at convincing us that there are, in deed, magical solutions for all of our needs and desires. Feeling stressed? Take a cruise. Not six months from now when you have saved up...but take the cruise tomorrow and just finance the cost.

All this advertising has had effects far beyond the goods and services that are advertised. Most of us have developed an "instant gratification" attitude. And, we often apply our instant gratification attitude to relationships of all kind. We expect continual instant gratification from our relationships with service providers, with employers, and even with friends and family.

Having an instant gratification attitude leads to an insatiable appetite for instant gratification... dooming you to unpleasant after-affects which frequently outlast the quick fix.

There are six keys to avoiding becoming an instant gratification person:

1. Make peace your ultimate goal – Peace is the foundation for everything. Make it a higher priority than instant gratification. For peace pays long lasting benefits. In better health. In better relationships. In more happiness. Learn how to more often exist in a state of peace and harmony so that you can avoid becoming an instant gratification person.
2. Shut out the Instant Gratification messages – Your mind is the "temple" to your body. Numerous studies have shown the dramatic impacts that result from what you put into your mind. Choose carefully the messages that you let get to your mind. You can do so by carefully controlling the environment in which you spend your time. Be careful of time spent watching television or listening to the radio. Select what you watch and listen to with great care. Treat your mind like a temple and only admit the good, the pure, and the positive.
3. Develop an "investor" mentality – Associate lasting benefits with things you choose to do. Invest in your mind (by putting in the right thoughts and images) so as to enjoy long lasting, good mental health. Invest in your body (by limiting your intake to foods that are good for your body and by exercising regularly) so as to enjoy long lasting, good health. Invest in your relationships (by being a giver to others) so as to enjoy long lasting, good relationships. And understand that just as in financial investing, if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.
4. Surround yourself with "investors" – The quality of the people with whom you associate will have an enormous impact on the quality of your life. When you surround yourself with instant gratification types, you will find it difficult to be other than an instant gratification person, constantly overdosing on instant fixes. But when you surround yourself with investors, you will naturally gravitate to their way of thinking. You will more often be investing so as to get long lasting benefits.
5. Get back to nature – Nature took many, many centuries to create. And, the beauty of nature is lasting testament to the concept that many of the better thing sin life cannot be created instantly. Get back to nature as often as you can. Experience the world that was created for us...as opposed to the concrete canyons that we have erected. Nature will bring you perspective, as well as a peace that will warm your soul.
6. Be Happy – Happiness is a state of mind. As such, it is greatly influenced by choices that you make. Train your mind for happiness. Learn how deep happiness comes from within not through the accumulation of goods. Learn how it is different than pleasure which is by nature much shorter lived. Commit to a life of being happy by becoming a student of happiness. Just as you must learn about toxins in order to avoid them, so too must you learn about happiness so as to develop the skill of sustaining lasting happiness.

Do these six things and you will have gone far in avoiding development of an instant gratification attitude. Just remember that the battle is on ongoing one for the advertisers of this world are out there every single day trying to convince you that instant gratification is the road to a better life. Reject the message of instant gratification with all your might!