Instant Gratification Culture

Just pondering, this evening:

In our instant-gratification-, "microwaveable-" modern culture, addiction, of many many kinds, is a prevalent problem. I don't just point to party people for this... even the most retiring of us may have at least a dopamine addiction. For example, I am an anxious person, in general, and open-ended, uncompleted projects furthermore add to the swirl of stress orbiting around me at all times.  Getting things done--meals, for instance--instantly reduces the anxiety of the open-ended task and gives me the reward of having completed something. And since I dislike cooking, the sooner I get it done the better.

This all unfortunately inclines me toward looking for the dopamine hits provided by those not-so-good "goodies" modern times put before our eyes. I miss some of the junk we used to eat because it was SO easy. I could get something on the table in minutes, and feel like I had done something, check and checkmate, Monday! Similarly, I think we are always being tempted toward anti-permie solutions in our day to day life. One vulnerability may be this one of mine--of seeking closure too quickly when the good things take time. Maybe I'm not the only one to struggle with this?

While I do tend toward permaculture , I don’t have a crisis if I go on a different direction. My goal is to steadily do better.   Over time, I have experienced fewer slips.   It has been a very long time since I have had a junk hamburger for example.  It has been at least 5 years since I have stepped in a restaurant.  Probably a cup a coffee at a drive through is the closest I have come.   But, if I did decide to grab a junk hamburger, I wouldn’t loose a lot of sleep … well, maybe I would loose some due to the indigestion.

I think there's a lot to unpack in this topic. Very relevant "ponderation"!

Exploring what drives our behaviors probably isn't strictly necessary, but I have found it helpful. I may be productive and a hard worker – but its root is people-pleasing learned from my childhood culture (put another way, the learned belief “I am not okay as a person unless they approve of me”). Accomplishing things can be very soothing to my brain, but relying on that for my self-worth is just... icky, for me. Not in line with my values. So the quest for me has been untangling the false belief from the behavior, finding a different driver for the behavior, and finding balance. (Instead of “overworking”, just “working”.)

I, too, deal with this in cooking meals – lots of other factors going on there (how I feel about perceived traditional roles, what I was taught makes me a “good wife”, how I want to feed my spouse vs the resources actually available to me, etc) and the easy option is so tempting sometimes. I also recognize the “get it done and over with – whew!” feeling. I actually enjoy cooking and being in the kitchen, but for some reason there's a lot more to it than that. This is an ongoing self-growth area for me.

Another example for me is creative projects. I use to cut corners or take shortcuts - and I'd get okay results. I was too impatient to learn proper methods and would just wing it. Then I learned a bit, did a bit more, kept learning, kept doing... eventually I placed greater value on the quality of the result than in merely getting the garment finished and wearable. I feel like in this area, at least, I really uncovered the value of discipline and slowing down.

I notice my im/patience levels can indicate how stressed/anxious I'm feeling about life in general.

I don't let it bother me if I still seek instant gratification over the slow, hard thing. But I don't ignore it anymore. I try to acknowledge it and accept it. Like when I reach for my phone at night (a big Ick for me), I try to be honest that, “Yep, I'm totally avoiding having to think” about whatever I'm angsting over right then.

I don't think there are any big conclusions in all that, except you are emphatically not alone in it.

I believe in getting things done.

No procrastination. Get up and do things now.

I am also not big on the `Instant Gratification` thing.

If I eat a piece of pie I might get ` Instant Gratification` as that pie tasted so good.  Thats it ...

I spent my early years in the UK, with almost no TV, no commercials, no eating at restaurants, no phoning your friends to see if they're home, eating everything on your plate whether you want to or not, and kid's coats made out of bigger coats past their prime. My parents were child products of wartime rationing, and zero waste was drilled into holes in your head, topped up constantly, or something like that.

I was emmigrated to Canada (with my parents) and was overwhelmed by commercials to buy buy buy
"Save while you spend " which never make sense
Two old beef patties

Now, people are tethered to their phones and are conditioned to replace them as soon as the software won't support upgrades, or if a screen fix costs too much -- I miss a keyboard phone...

I just got online after 20 years with a copper phone line. There still isn't cellular reception and the mountains aren't going anywhere. It feels strange to be able to catch up on last year's Kickstarter lol and have a phone I can wifi call to find it!

The most disturbing thing I've noticed is some people now feel compelled to upgrade their partner as though they were a phone. Perhaps because their phones mean more to them.

Instant gratification and upgrades and pile on the debt. More more and bigger and better, without nary a thought

Since 2020, I dream about all that restaurant food stuff like Chicken Fried steak, Hamburgers, ...

I even like to day dream about Cracker Barrel and Red Lobster ...

I never have been into those microwavable ...

I might get Instant Gratification from a piece of chocolate cake or a brownie bite if I had some available...

for now it is just called a piece of chocolate ...

If I could have one instant gratification upgrade to my life today, it would be about food: every now and again, I would love someone to prepare me delicious food I can feel good about, and do the dishes after.

Once upon a time, that wish was easily granted - in restaurant form. All one needed was money, the options were endless. But for me at least, things have changed.

The problem with taking charge of my own health and diet for years now, is that I have changed my biome. Even if my taste buds were fooled into thinking this food is acceptable, my body is not. Every restaurant experience for the last six plus years has ended with me feeling queasy and generally unwell. It is salt in the wound that I paid money for the experience.

I live in a remote place where food service options are limited and far from my preferences, which compounds the issue further. I recently traveled to see family, and in more urban environs was able to indulge my food fantasies. Farm to table - clean - ethical - sustainable eateries DO still exist. But at $52 for a single plate of braised short-rib and $38 for a pasta dish with heirloom vegetables, well - that pushes it back into fantasy realm for me. I even spied a single steak valued at $350 - an animal that had been honored from inception, apparently.

So much for instant gratification in the food realm. I’m about to braise the venison neck of a buck I hunted alone last year in the mountains near my home and processed myself - he’s been marinating in wild Oregon Grape wine and spices for several days - also harvested and processed myself - served over vegetables I’ve grown with sourdough I've baked of local home-milled flour. Months of effort for a single dish prepared over days. Price tag:  impossible to calculate.

Whatever the opposite of instant gratification is - that is the life I’ve chosen. Most days, I view it as a privilege. But oh how I wish the rest of the world thought clean food was as important as I do. It would not be so hard for us to be well fed and healthy. Food shops and restaurants everywhere would be places of nourishment, instead of experiences which leave us depleted. And farmers would be revered - Heroes of Legend. A girl can dream.

Indeed yes, I certainly enjoy my "dopamine hits." Except I try to realign them so they refer to something positive, useful, productive. I suppose that's the opposite of an "instant gratification" impulse buy on Amazon, followed with the stale hangover of a nasty credit card balance. I am inclined toward "slow dopamine hits" that I can revisit and refresh, over and over.

When I drop off hand-grown surplus veggies for a neighbour (or for their chickens), that's a positive dopamine hit. It builds community. And memories of that hit encourage me to grow more than I need, with the promise of more hits in the future.

And when I scrounge some free item and do a minor repair and then flip it back to a charity thrift shop, I get a nice dopamine hit. Sure, they'll only get a few bucks but it adds up and that sends cash money to a dozen local helping organizations. Fixing the world, a little bit at a time, is mighty damn satisfying. My 2c.

I didn't think about giving as a dopamine hit, but it's so true!
And just thinking about repurposing something I can save from the land fill does it too!

I used to suffer from this issue of guilt but recently learned to let it go.

I did not know I was practicing Permiculture or even knew it had a name. I just did as much as I could for myself… starting about age 4 I think!

I really did. I even learned from a young age that you do the work up front then reap the rewards. I did that for years and became a true Gert. But last March I sold out and collected literally on my hard work. In some ways it sucks, life is suddenly underwhelming; with no struggles there is no sense of achievement. But here is the thing…

I struggled on the front end and now, at age 50 I can enjoy the fruits of my hard labor. In that life is different for me because I learned to do things differently. I reaped the rewards of permiculture because I did it much sooner and longer than most.

Myself I think it’s fine for me to engage in instant gratification in some ways because it never was something I did. It’s just me and the wife: is it wrong for us to go out to eat 5 nights a week and let others cook? Why not? But then I am happy with my 2003 Honda CRv. Could I get a Bentley? Sure, but a lifetime of delayed gratification keeps me from going crazy.

I put the delay up front, now it’s okay for gratification how ever I see fit. But make no mistake, it was A lifetime of Permie living that got me to this point.

Instant gratification syndrome (my term) is not only intentionally encouraged in our society, but also necessary to the survival of our economic system. A capitalist economy relies on constant growth. That either means an ever-expanding consumer base, or ever-growing consumer demand, sometimes for stuff that really isn't necessary. When I was a child the term "keeping up with the Jones" was a common affliction of middle-class families. Now it's 50+ years later and not much has changed except the technology has made it easier to find ways to keep ahead of the Jones and made it easier to market all that stuff to us. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements. It was probably back in the 80's when I first noticed the horrors of our instant gratification world view.  "Fax the documents over and I will overnight the signed copies back" was a daily routine in business circles. That daily exposure to get it done now mentality trickles down into our personal lives. People stay so distracted and anxious about productivity and some weird concept called "success" that they fail to actually enjoy any of the short time they are alive. It's sad really.

I have embraced a slower pace for many things in life. Probably because I worked in the trades and became a craftsman with a variety of skillsets. In home construction there was a saying: "Good, fast, and cheap. Pick two. You only get two". Even in my recreational pursuits I was slower and methodical, and not by nature. I am by nature a very impatient person. Patience had to be learned. The enjoyment came from the doing of things. The gratification of completion came later. I learned to enjoy completing tasks in incremental ways, step by step. In large part, this is a perspective issue. I needed to look at life from a different viewpoint.