Instant Gratification

Recently I attended an event that had a celebrity speaker. Once the talk was over, the MC announced that members in the audience who wished to take a photograph with the speaker were invited on the side of the stage. They discouraged people from taking selfies and assured the audience that a copy of the photograph would be available at the end of the event. After the dinner, as we proceeded towards the exit, a nicely framed photograph was placed on a table for the audience to take home.

Many years back, when visiting theme parks and going on rides with my daughter, at the end of every ride we would see our photographs taken during the ride with a high speed camera, on sale for  US$ 8 to 10,  which was a significant amount at that time. The temptation to buy the photograph was high even without pressure from my daughter because of the instantaneous nature and we had just had the ‘high’ of the ride.

In work life some of the best moments are when a manager or a colleague would come to the desk, totally out of the blue, and compliment us for the work done. There need not be an award or anything significant gift being given, but when we get the compliment we are overjoyed simply because it was totally unexpected and for a task completed recently.

Imagine the joy on the mother’s face, when after serving food to her hungry child, who has just come home tired from school, that right after the mother has served the food in the child’s plate and heads back towards the kitchen the child screams “ Mumma, the food is delicious !!! Thank you!!!”

These are just a random examples to emphasize on the beauty of instant gratification, when at a particular moment our joy knows no bounds . The joy is especially enhanced by the sudden nature of the compliment and memory of such instances is very long lasting.

But the article is not about being at the receiving end of instant gratification, but to be the ‘giver’ of such joy:

·      How often do we ourselves create such instances for others ?

·      How often do we really speak out when we have had a good experience?

·      Do we make it a point to complement when someone moved us by their words or touched us by their action?

·      How often we miss appreciating someone’s work, decided to wait for a better moment, but that moment never came?

We generally (pretend to be) busy in our daily lives and thus miss out on such opportunities regularly. Timing of these appreciation is very important. The impact will be lot milder or even completely absent if delayed significantly. How often it has happened, that the company agrees to give insane increment, promotion, juicy perks and even all of the above, to hold back an employee who has tendered his resignation. Imagine if they had had a policy of instant gratification as a part of the system, they would have saved so much money!

While we procrastinate the idea of giving gratification, we need to be mindfulness of unpredictability of life now-a-days. The new reality is death can come when we least expect it to, leaving many dreams unfulfilled.

In summary, realise that joy received is for us to share and spread the feeling of goodwill. Pass it forward and see its impact on others. Do not wait for the ‘right moment’ to complement someone, do it now. Maybe you can start with the author of the article and request him to read your article too!!