The Power Of Instant Gratification Explained

By Sally Lizwa

Gratification is the pleasurable emotional reaction of happiness in response to a fulfillment of a desire or goal. It is also identified as a response stemming from the fulfillment of social needs.

Instant gratification is the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment without delay or wait. Basically, it is when you want it, whatever it may be; and you want it now. It is human nature that when we do not get fulfillment, our psychological response is anxiety or tension which leads to stress.

Instant gratification is the opposite of what we have been taught and try too hard to practice – Delayed Gratification. Waiting is hard, and there is an inborn desire to have what we want when we want it, which is usually without any delay.

This has affected some of the things in our lives such as our shopping experience, how we receive our news, our day-to-day communication, and even our daily trends. Everything about our daily lives is instantaneous thanks to technology and the internet.

We rather order food from a fast-food joint or restaurant, than actually experience the joy of preparing food with ingredients from scratch in or without the presence of the company, engaging in hearty conversations.

Due to the internet being so fast-paced, this has made everything else in our lives seems slow. As a society, our patience is running low therefore fading with time. At any given moment, trends go in and out of style within a matter of days and even hours!

We cannot even focus on one thing and be good at it anymore because we do not have the patience, discipline nor ability to keep on trying even after constant failing – consistency.

What is worse is that because small things like receiving daily news and running errands like shopping have been made to happen so quickly, therefore, making it seem like big things such as careers and relationships move too slowly for us. Thus, feeling threatened that we are not progressing in all aspects of our lives.

This in turn makes many people feel lost and as if they are underachieving, hence making sticking to long-term goals become much more difficult. However, patience is a virtue. At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, what is more important. Our patience or instant gratification?