Delayed Gratification and the Creative Soul – Part 2: the Case Against
Published by Andrew Leigh July 3rd, 2008 in Goals and Goal Setting, Just Doing It, Success.Okay – so you read (I hope) the case for incorporating a delayed gratification approach into your creative life – now, for the first time anywhere (so far as I know), here is the case against – or…
Why Instant Gratification Rules
Note: I’m taking a devil’s advocate stance here so don’t expect any kind of balanced argument.
Delayed gratification can be a real creativity killer. If you’ve ever seen the kind of person who has truly embraced delayed gratification you’ll know exactly what I mean.
This is the kind of person who plans to marry their partner in 7 years time. They actually set a date. It’s dull, dull, dull accountant-think where everything is subjugated to the hallowed dogma of future profit.
When you are deep in the delayed gratification groove it becomes a cop out from the terrifying, exhilarating joy of living in the here and now. It’s safe, uneventful and smug, and you can look down on your lesser life forms secure in the knowledge that you will end up in a bigger house, with a better car and a wonderful 2.5 children family. And when the time comes you will know exactly when to stop delaying your gratification and begin to enjoy – really enjoy – all the accumulated fruits of your dutiful toil.
Yeah… right. As if.
The awkward truth is that delayed gratification is a habit that’s hard to give up. The grim puritan soul of delayed gratification feeds on the consistent denial of the good things on offer at this moment – to the point where denial itself becomes the reward.
Well stuff that!
How can you be creative when you hold back from the spontaneity of now? How can you be original when your imagination (if you can call it that) is fixed within the rigid tram-lines of your ever-so-conventional future vision?
If you want to find and keep your creativity you need to party. And every now and again you need to really party. You need to feed your creativity with unplanned indulgence and planned stimulation. You need the ability to drop everything when your friends need you to – to cry with them, laugh with them, bitch with them.
You need the time to gaze at the stars, to become fascinated by the wrinkles on an old man’s face, or awed by the perfect lacework of a dragonfly’s wing. And you need to be idle enough to allow your thoughts and ideas to come together at their own pace.
Our creative soul needs everything that a life dedicated to the god of delayed gratification denies. If we want to be creative we should deny its false promise.
If you enjoyed this article please vote for it on Sumbleupon by clicking the button below. Thank you.
Stumble It!Other relevant posts:
Delayed Gratification and the Creative Soul – Part 1: Delayed Gratification is Good For You
Delayed Gratification and the Creative Soul - Part 3: Why Double Gratification is Best
Oh yeah, now you’re talking! Haha.
Joking aside I think there’s a valid argument for both approaches as long as you don’t spend too much time on one or the other - sometimes spontanious is the smart thing to do and sometimed delayed gratification brings the best rewards (like me delaying the gratification of spending money now so I can save up for my new HD camera in a few weeks!).
Hi Gaina
Couldn’t agree more. I guess I’ll be making that point in part 3 - so you beat me to it!
Luckily I have some other stuff to add as well, so hopefully it’ll still be worth reading.
Glad you got the jokey, OTT tone. I love writing overblown rhetoric but there’s not that much call for it unless you’re an overblown rhetorical-style politician.
Cheers - Andrew