Mathew A
Mathew A
Nov 1 · 2 min read

The brilliance of the marshmallow test is its illustrates the clear benefits of delayed gratification.

Most of getting ahead in life is not doing what you want to do now, in order to get some benefits later.

Instead of going to play you study. Instead of buying something new, you save money. This is key to a lot of life.

For example, there were a lot of other things I would have rather done than spend almost a year studying for my CPA exam (after work of course). And there definitely was a lot of things I would have rather done than go back to school for my MBA (again at night after work) for three years.

But the truth is, to get ahead in life you are most likely going to have to work a lot more than 40 hours a week, and put off doing a lot of fun things (or more likely a lot of TV time).

But this applies to a lot more than studying. It applies to consumption and lifestyle as well. My wife and I moved back in with my parents for several years to pay off debt and save money to buy a house. That certainly wasn’t what we wanted to do, but there was no other way to reach our eventual goals (in a time frame that was acceptable to us anyway). So we did what we had to do.

So yes, I do believe self control, and the ability to delay gratification and consumption are key to getting ahead in life, and the marshmallow test does a pretty good job illustrating this. I’m sure it’s true that kids from good homes probably naturally do better on these tests because good parents are probably emphasizing this to their kids from a very young age. I know I already am to our four year old daughter “A large part of life is not getting to do what you want to do when you want to do it”. Mine as well get used to it from a young age.