Delayed Gratification

Some of my earliest and clearest memories are of visits to my father's parents' house. My grandfather had a club basement, complete with real oak panelled walls, a gas fireplace, a built-in couch with a large back-lit photo of Capri behind it, and a glass block bar with multi-colored lights inside. My grandmother liked to bake, and she was somewhat famous in their town for her pound cake. It was so good it'd make a grown man cry. Or at least beg.

She made the icing too, and it was just like fudge, only it was icing. I would eat large amounts of this cake whenever we had occasion to visit them. The cake part was good, better then I knew at the time, but for me, the real treat was the icing, which I would eat last.

I was born with the concept of delayed gratification. I always saved my best assets for another time, for a time when they would become more valuable, or more sweet.

I really never had to learn this behavior, or if I did, I taught myself, because I'm not too sure my parents ever learned it, at least not as well as me.

How do you teach this? I don't know that, but I am sure it can be learned. How many 'successful' friends do you have that you know didn't save a nickel a of that 100k they brought home last year? What did they do with it you ask? Maybe they can't answer that, but I can tell you: They devoured it, like a freshly killed animal they dragged back to their cave. They brought it through the darkness of the cave, over to where their families, friends, and other tribe members waited by the fire. Then together, they tore it apart, raw. Then it was all gone.

What is it worth if you don't save any of it? Lots, if you're only here for a moment. But you're not here for a moment. If fact, with modern science, you may be here for a very long time, longer than any previous generation. So get to it, go out and save, leave the leg, freeze it, save it for the winter, it will be cold, and you WILL be hungry!