I want it now!

Some things take time; that’s a truth of life. For instance, if you plant an orange seed and water it and nurture it diligently, it eventually becomes a tree that bears fruit continuously. If the seeds of this fruit is replanted you get an orchard.

It is the same with humans. We all have seeds but we envy the person who already has an orchard. We are too busy envying his lifestyle, his position, his title and car to water and nurture our own seeds so that they can one day give rise to our own orchards. So instead of doing the hard work, we beg, borrow and steal so that we can become orchard owners without putting in the requisite work and time. However, even though we succeed at faking it, we remain insecure because we know we really are not what we pretend we are and it soon catches up with us. Only we know the debt we have taken and continue to take to live up to the image of “orchard owner.” Or the not so honest transactions we silently undertake.

Meanwhile our seeds – our ideas, potential, natural abilities, and gifts, wither and remain underdeveloped, simply because the process seems too hard. We are more interested in the orchard owner’s house, not the story behind the house or the process or sheer strength of character that got her to where she is. We miss out on the moment when she only had Sh200 to her name.

There’s a lie we continue perpetuating to ourselves: that somehow and sometime soon, there’s a deal that will come that will just sort out all the underlying problems we are building up.

This deal may be a lump sum from a transaction, a relationship with someone who has made it, a big job. You may be dreaming that your employer will suddenly see your massive hidden potential and quadruple your income. You wish that you will one day start a business that will take off from beginning, etc.

JET-SET LIFESTYLE

And in the meantime you keep blaming everything in sight that you think is keeping you away from your massive break: your spouse, your employer, the economy, your industry, inflation, rising school fees and so forth. If this rings a bell, you are the perfect victim of the disease called instant gratification. You are a member of the microwave generation.

Patience is a lot more important than we think. I met a young man who is on his second job and is now about to take a car loan that will eat up about half of his salary in repayments. Wanting the convenience of driving is not the problem; the problem is how he is going about it. There are lots of other cars that would not cost him much, but he wants a car that will elevate his status and he wants it now.

He doesn’t realise that there is always a higher social status to live up to and a car to go with it, so if he doesn’t change anything about his life and thoughts, he will soon find himself in a bind. There’s someone else I know who is struggling to save her ailing business (which was once very profitable) because she withdrew money to buy a house in a very nice neighbourhood.

Others have been known to waste family inheritance that took decades to build in two years after adopting a jet-set lifestyle. There is the intern who quits a company that would provide huge prospects in six months because he or she was offered a few shillings more somewhere else. Never mind that those few extra shillings will be used for drinks on Friday nights.

Maybe you want to be like the boss who leaves work early to go play golf without understanding the years of extra hours that he had to put in before he got to where he is. You therefore start leaving early to your own detriment. If the people in these scenarios are not jolted out of this thinking, they will soon find themselves in problems.

Instant gratification is not only about what we do, it also shows up in what we do not do. There are many people who want to go into business but will not take the first step because they are afraid that they will no longer be able to gratify themselves the way they have been doing. 

They will not be immediately able to maintain the lifestyle that they have become accustomed to. Sometimes people ask why they should be working so hard if they cannot do all these nice things. Well, you can still do the things you enjoy, but only do what you truly value and do it sustainably. Don’t do things to get other people’s attention, respect or approval or to prove something to others.

BIGGER PICTURE

You need to make rational decisions that other people might refer to as sacrifice, but how else are you going to be able to live that good life you have become accustomed to if you don’t do it sustainably? The missing puzzle when it comes to instant gratification is the bigger picture. If your focus is on your current lifestyle or aspiring to have somebody else’s lifestyle, that is very myopic.

There is life beyond your next car, house or holiday. What is that (life) for you? It has got to be bigger than the urge to buy the next version of the phone you have. Define how you want your orchard to look. What do you want to experience?

Who do you want to become (character)? How do you want to live? What will be your income? Who is important? What impact do you want to have? By all means put the car you want to be driving sustainably on the list, but keep the bigger picture in mind as you make your decisions this year. Reveal the bigger picture through your everyday actions. You can’t serve two masters.

You may not get it one hundred per cent right and nobody ever does, but something has to take priority. Is your priority going to be instant gratification or is it going to be waiting patiently for the process (your seed of effort) to bear fruit?

Process results in orchards, while instant gratification or the microwave results in withered seeds. So is it going to be the orchard or the microwave for you?