The trap of instant gratification

The inability to delay gratification is at the root of the poverty mentality. The hallmark of poverty mentality is instant gratification. There is nothing wrong with getting nice things. Life is beautiful and ought to be enjoyed to the fullest, as we only get one shot at it. The issue is doing the right thing at the right time.

There is a time and season for everything under the sun. A time to sow and a time to reap, a time to work and a time to play, a time to do without and a time to indulge. The secret is in doing things at their right time.

The mistake most people make is to think that the moment money gets into their hands, it is harvest time. So they consume their wages mistaking it for profit. It takes patience and delayed gratification to invest your wages and wait for the returns before you consume. Even when you have zero investing skills, placing your savings in a high interest yielding account pays handsome dividends over the long term. The compound interest is regarded as the 8th wonder of the modern world. You can grow your principal sum to the level that you can live on interest. It does not happen overnight.

Instant gratification is fun. You get what you want and you get it instantly. You keep up with the Joneses in a heartbeat. You belong to the happening crowd, sporting the latest of everything in town. But there is a huge opportunity cost. When you spend all you earn, you lose the opportunity to have money work for you. You have to keep working for money.

Even when you are young, thinking you have decades to save for retirement, old habits die hard. The longer you delay, the harder it becomes to achieve financial independence before your retire. Without financial independence, you are standing on a weak financial foundation. If anything happens to your job or pension, you are in a financial crisis. Many seniors get to realize rather later in the game that medical costs can gulp up their tidy nest egg pretty quickly. Depending on fixed income can be a one way ticket to the poor house.

Learning to delay gratification is a critical skill to learn on the way to financial independence. It has to do with self discipline and focus on your desired goal. This allows you to make predictable progress towards your financial goals. There is no better feeling than having a goal and making progress towards it. By the time you get there, you can easily afford the things you denied yourself previously, on a sustainable basis.