Chapter 3: Agency,
Prevention Is Better than Cure
Naaman, the king of Syria “was a
mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.” When Syria conquered Israel,
captives were brought from Israel who became slaves to the Syrians. One of the
captives “a little maid… waited on Naaman’s wife.” One day while serving her
mistress, the little maid told Naaman’s wife that there was a prophet in Israel
who could cure leprosy. When Naaman’s wife told him what the maid had said, he
traveled to Israel to see the prophet Elijah. “So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at
the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying,
Go and wash in Jordan seven times… and thou shalt be clean.” This offended
Naaman for three reasons. First, he expected Elijah to personally greet him and
perform the miracle with flair. Secondly, he didn’t expect to be part of his
own miracle by having to do something; and third, bathing in the Jordan River
was beneath his dignity. “Are not
[the] rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his
servants came near, and spake unto him, and said…, if the prophet had bid thee
do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when
he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself
seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh
came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean” (2
Kings 5:1-14). We like Naaman often feel the harder and more complex a
solution, the more likely it is to be helpful. It is often, however, by small
and simple means that great things happen. Be open to tried and true
principles; don’t “dis” the simple.
Since Roman times, the mallow plant
has been used as a gel to soothe and soften dry skin. Today its properties are
used to calm sensitive skin as an anti-inflammatory and to make cough syrup, herbal
tea, and the candy we call marshmallows. Does the marshmallow seem out of place
in this line-up of health products? It’s
actually fitting that the candy is created from a substance with a proven
history of healing. Researchers used the marshmallow in an experiment to test
for behavioral indicators that could heal many societal problems and is a key
ingredient in avoiding longcuts.
In our computerized society where
everything we want is only a click away, we’re losing the ability to delay
gratification. We know what we want and want it now, right now, not giving even
a thought to the possibility that this mindset may cause problems in the
future. In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel
Goleman describes a controlled experiment that measured the self-discipline of
four-year-olds. As each four-year-old test subject was offered a marshmallow,
the experimenter explained to the child that he could eat the marshmallow
whenever he wanted, but if he could wait to eat it until the experimenter
returned from a quick errand he would be given a second marshmallow. When I
read the results of this experiment, I immediately became aware how crucial the
“eternal battle between impulse and restraint… desire and self-control,
gratification and delay” is. (See Emotional Intelligence, 79). In the study, the experimenter left each child
alone for fifteen to twenty minutes while he went on his “errand.” Through
two-way mirrors, the experimenters watched the children’s reactions. Some
grabbed the single marshmallow immediately. Some waited. “To sustain themselves
in their struggle they covered their eyes so they wouldn’t have to stare at
temptation, or rested their heads in their arms, talked to themselves, sang,
played games with their hands and feet, even tried to go to sleep” (Goleman, 80).
“When these children reached adolescence, they were tracked and reevaluated.
The children who had resisted the quick marshmallow at age four stayed that
way: “Those who had resisted temptation at four were now, as adolescents, more
socially competent, personally effective, self-assertive, and better able to
cope with the frustrations of life…. They were self-reliant and confident,
trustworthy and dependable; and they took initiative and plunged into projects.
And, they were still able to delay gratification in pursuit of their goals.” In
contrast, the one-marshmallow adolescents were “More likely to… shy away from
social contacts, be stubborn and indecisive, easily upset by frustrations, to
think of themselves as bad or
unworthy… and they were still, after all those years, unable to put off
gratification” (Goleman, 80).
Fourteen years after the original experiment, during the
children’s senior year in high school, the test subjects were reevaluated. The
new data even surprised the researchers. “Those who had waited patiently at
four were far superior as students to those who had acted on whim…. Most
astonishingly, they had dramatically higher scores on their SAT tests. The
third of the children who at four grabbed for the marshmallow most eagerly had
an average verbal score of 524 and math score of 528; the third who waited
longest had average scores of 610 and 652—a difference of 210 points in total
score” (Goleman, 82). Self-discipline allowed the children to gain power over
their decisions, emotions, and actions at age four, and the power to achieve
higher test scores at age eighteen, propelling them toward college and
satisfying careers. Self-discipline and the ability to delay gratification
helps keep us out of longcuts, maintaining our agency.
Discipline is comprised of many attributes which all
relate to the use of time: the time it takes to resist impulse; the time it
takes to persist; the time it takes to delay gratification.
The ability to resist impulse: An impulse is a
strong urge, desire, or temptation. It is time sensitive in that an impulse
demands an immediate response. Resisting for even a few moments gives the
impulse time to dissipate and the more time that passes, the more likely
resistance will conquer the urge. For example, children who waited for the
second marshmallow “covered their eyes so they wouldn’t have to stare at
temptation, or rested their heads in their arms, talked to themselves, sang,
played games with their hands and feet, even tried to go to sleep.”
The ability to persist: Persistence is an ongoing
commitment to work toward a goal and occurs between the impulse and the
fulfillment, reward, or gratification. The children who were determined to
receive the second marshmallow were required to persistently refuse the first
marshmallow over and over again for twenty minutes. At any point, if their
persistence had failed, the reward would have been lost.
The ability to delay gratification: Resisting an
impulse in order to receive a desired future reward, in this case the second
marshmallow, delays gratification. In other words, you tell yourself no right
now so you will have the option to say yes in the future.
These
three elements of self-discipline indicate the use of time, of which we all have
the same amount. How you and I use time is the issue. History provides poignant
examples of individuals that have used or abused their allotment of time. We
can’t purchase more of it but we can use it more effectively by focusing on
what can happen in seconds such as in the 100-yard dash, what can be
accomplished in several hours like running a marathon, or how to keep focused
for decades—the time it takes to raise a family.
Larry
H. Miller is a name you’ll recognize if you are a Utah Jazz fan. “His rise from an uneducated, aimless youth to a
billionaire philanthropist, car dealer and NBA owner; his driven, obsessive
work ethic” are legendary. He died at age 64 on February 20, 2009. (Quoted text
is from Deseret News stories written by Doug Robinson who also wrote Miller’s
autobiography titled Driven.) After
graduating from high school Larry worked construction and in an auto parts
store. He raced cars for seven years and played fast-pitch softball as pitcher
in league play in Salt Lake City and Denver. He was a good pitcher. While
pursuing his softball career, he moved up to manager in an auto parts store and
in 1978 became operations manager over five Toyota stores. Then he purchased
his first dealership. Some of the businesses owned at his death include: NBA’s Utah Jazz, IHC’s Golden Eagles ice hockey
team, Salt Lake Bees—a minor league baseball team, Miller Sportspark –a racing
track, forty-two automotive dealerships in several states, restaurants,
theaters, a chain of sports apparel stores, the Energy Solutions Arena (home of
the Utah Jazz), a shopping mall, a television station. There are seven places
named after him. He
attributes his success to his home life. Are you wondering what kind of home
would produce such an outstanding individual?
Larry’s parents divorced when he was two. His
mother remarried two years later and Larry’s stepfather legally adopted him.
“With only the retrospect and experience of an adult, I realize that my
childhood was a walk across a sheet of ice, and I was never certain the world
under my feet would support me. I did my best to survive, but little more. I
was aware of the delicacy of my position and did my best simply to stay under
the radar.” Twice his parents called the police to come and take him to
juvenile detention. (Larry’s crime was being Larry.) The last time he was in
his home, he was sixteen. That fateful night he returned home about eleven to
see three sacks on the porch. When he looked in the sacks, he saw they were
filled with all his belongings. When he tried to get in, he discovered all the
doors were locked.
“I didn't know what to do, especially at this late
hour. I was moving as if in a dream. I was too wounded to knock on the door and
ask my parents what was going on. I did the only thing I could think to do: I
picked up the three bags, hugging them to my chest, and walked down the hill to
Gail's house. We had been dating for about a year now, and I spent a lot of
time at her home. Her parents agreed to let me stay the night on their couch.”
The next day he went to a friend’s home. The family welcomed him into their
home where he stayed for six months, just three blocks from his family, but
they never contacted him. Larry learned he had to make it on his own. His
persistence helped him achieve more than he ever imagined.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “That which we persist in doing
becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our
ability to perform it has improved.” A persistent personality is willing to
resist, persist, and delay gratification to meet his goals. Heber J. Grant
restated Emerson’s words. He said: “That which we persist
in
doing
becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing
itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.”
That “power” is the ability to stay focused and stay on course to resist and
persist, resist and persist, resist and persist. Heber’s persistence
is
legendary. Whatever he wasn’t good at, he worked at until he achieved. One day
while playing baseball, someone called him a “sissy.” So, he began working on
his baseball skills and earned a position on a championship team. His penmanship was described as chicken
tracks, but he practiced and eventually taught penmanship at a university. One of his greatest
achievements was learning to sing. He was profoundly tone deaf to the extent
that he could not tell the difference between the highest and lowest notes on
the piano. Heber Grant was determined
to write legibly, play baseball well, have elegant penmanship, and sing in such
a way that those who were listening would not wish they were forty miles away.
It was reported he sang one hundred hymns on a trip to Arizona and to learn to sing
one of his favorite songs he practiced
it five thousand times.
On February 13, 2010, Richard and I went to a NAIA
division II basketball game at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath
Falls, Oregon. As 2,000 fans entered the
building, each received a pink t-shirt for breast cancer awareness night, which
I personally felt was a little celebration for me. How thankful I am to be a
thirteen-year survivor. But the reason we came to the game was because if the Hustlin’ Owls won the game, it would be Coach Danny
Miles 900th career win. And win they did and it was definitely a
celebration. With two minutes to play the fans started chanting: “Danny Miles,
Danny Miles.” To put his achievement in perspective, there are about fifteen
hundred four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. Each of those fifteen
hundred schools has had on average forty head basketball coaches, twenty men’s
and 20 women’s. That’s forty times fifteen hundred which equals sixty thousand
head coaches and only six others have ever achieved a nine hundredth win.
That’s .00012 percent! Most impressive by any standard. Coach Miles began
coaching at OIT when he was twenty-four. At the postgame celebration, he said,
“Back in 1970 when I came here as an assistant coach, I didn’t know which
direction I wanted to go (with my career). The administration here took a
chance on a 24-year-old kid.” OIT president in his accolades said to Coach
Miles, “You are in the elite of college coaching.” The postgame celebration
took about twenty-five minutes and the fans were on their feet the whole time. Richard
and I cheered and enjoyed the win even though a few hours before we’d never
heard of the Hustlin’ Owls. It was obvious from the men on the team that Coach
Miles is a man of integrity. His players looked happy, intense, bright,
well-disciplined, dedicated, and wonderfully athletic. Coach Miles’ incredible
career took thirty-nine years to put him in this bracket of the elite of the
elite. Coach Miles is a man of conviction who teaches life skills along with
basketball skills.
I watched Coach Miles throughout the game. He’s a head
shorter than most of his players, and he’s not young as his white head attests.
To get nine hundred wins, he had to be content to coach in a small town for a
division II school. No doubt, by the time he had achieved win five hundred,
offers were coming from larger more prestigious schools, but he had purpose and
when asked why he had stayed at OIT in the postgame interview he said something
like, “Because my family liked it here.” His assistant coach, Dan Fast, paid
him tribute: “As a testament, I believe Coach Miles is a finer person than
basketball coach. His strength lies in his ability to read character, to
motivate, to discipline and love, to make a commitment and sell others on it….
Integrity, he has it, and wisdom beyond two lifetimes of mortal men. Dan Miles
has earned the right to be arrogant. Yet, he is one of the most humble and
down-to-earth men you or I will ever know.”
Perhaps those who can delay gratification to this extent
do so because they find “gratification” or reward in incremental steps as well
as in the end result. It’s possible these spectacular humans identify and live
daily in a “resist and persist” rhythm—resist-persist, resist-persist—to
achieve their goals. In Heber Grant’s case, he focused on things he couldn’t do
well until he was successful. For Larry Miller, he worked hard and persisted
and realized his God-given talent for business. For Danny Miles, who didn’t
mind being called Danny when he was over sixty years old, he stayed at the same
task for thirty-nine years. It was another man of incredible achievement,
ESPN’s coach of the century, Vince Lombardy, who in his final speech said:
“I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his
heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good
men that really yearns for discipline.” Larry Miller, Heber Grant, and Danny
Miles were willing to pay the price and figuratively said “No thanks, I’ll
wait,” to the offer of one marshmallow. They resisted impulse, practiced
persistence, and delayed gratification in order to avoid longcuts that would
have diluted their focus and hindered their achievements.
To
avoid longcuts:
1. Take wisdom and counsel from those who have walked
the road of life before you
2. Never believe you will be the exception to the laws
of nature
3. Know you will harvest what you sow
4. Learn the lessons of history so you won’t repeat
the same mistakes
5. Find
the power in resisting impulse, persisting, and delaying gratification.
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