Yesterday I had a rather philosophical conversation with my young nephews. The older one, Erik, is going to be six years old in October and the younger one, Alex, is four years old. They were playing the “Super Mario Brothers” game and Erik told Alex to have patience. Alex said, “I don’t do patience and I don’t know what patience is.” I thought I would illustrate the concept to Alex by posing a question to them.
“Suppose I have four candies to give you. If you want it right this second, you can only get one candy. If you can wait twenty minutes, you can get two candies, and if you wait an hour, you will get all four candies.” To my surprise, 4-year old Alex said, “ I don’t know how long an hour is but I will wait an hour to get four candies.” I am surprised to hear this reply because we are in the age of instant gratification. Alex’s answer is somewhat unconventional, counter-intuitive and opposite to his previous statement.
What surprised me even more was Erik’s reply. He asked me how many candies I had in total. I said,’Four.’ He then said, “We will wait twenty minutes so we both get two candies each.” I commended Erik for being a good brother and showed consideration for his younger brother. Then their dad said to me, “Erik is not thinking about his brother at all. He is just optimising the wait time to get all your candies.”
I reflected on the conversation. Many a time, we forgo a great deal of possible rewards to attain instant gratification. Then there are times that we miss out on many opportunities because we illogically waited for rewards that would never materialize. I suppose the ultimate moral of this story is that we should be content with the decisions we make because life is a very good poker player.
