Waiting for Marshmallows

I think they like turning President Uchtdorf's talks into Mormon Messages because people really like his accent. His messages are great, too, of course. Deep, profound, inspiring. But his voice is amazing and so are his stories. In April 2010, he shared a story about young children and marshmallows. I'll post the video here.



I sure hope this isn't illegal. These videos are available to everyone for free, so it shouldn't be a problem that I'm sharing them, right?

This video is great, but to cut it down to size, they had to remove a paragraph that I would rather they had left in. It goes between "Only 30 percent were able to wait," and "What started as a simple experiment..." Here's the missing paragraph:

It was a mildly interesting experiment, and the professor moved on to other areas of research, for, in his own words, “there are only so many things you can do with kids trying not to eat marshmallows.” But as time went on, he kept track of the children and began to notice an interesting correlation: the children who could not wait struggled later in life and had more behavioral problems, while those who waited tended to be more positive and better motivated, have higher grades and incomes, and have healthier relationships.

President Uchtdorf went on to say that,

Waiting can be hard. Children know it, and so do adults. We live in a world offering fast food, instant messaging, on-demand movies, and immediate answers to the most trivial or profound questions. We don’t like to wait... Nevertheless, without patience, we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect... As parents, we know how unwise it would be to indulge our children’s every desire. But children are not the only ones who spoil when showered with immediate gratification. Our Heavenly Father knows what good parents come to understand over time: if children are ever going to mature and reach their potential, they must learn to wait.

I have frequently thought that we must be very much like children in God's eyes. We have a lot to learn and a lot of progress to make before we can become like Him, just as children have a lot to learn before they can act like adults. Children, when they think no one is watching them, have a hard time not eating marshmallows, and we, when we think we're alone, sometimes have a hard time choosing the right. Instant gratification is a temptation that's difficult to resist (That's why Satan uses it.), but God knows that discipline and delayed gratification bring greater rewards.

We can see that in the lives of the children who waited. They had better grades and incomes, better attitudes and more motivation, even better relationships. Perhaps their ability to wait lead to the discipline they used to obtain the greater blessings, or perhaps the ability to wait was one of the greater blessings they obtained through their discipline. Either way, both qualities - discipline and patience - can help us earn the greater blessings prepared for us and improve the overall quality of our lives.

Patience and discipline are rare qualities these days. They take a long time to obtain and are no fun to use. In our society, where Christ-like Attributes are hard to come by, discipline is especially unpopular. Yet, it's also one of those 'gateway' virtues. Like faith, the more discipline we have, the more success we'll have at developing other virtues and reaching other worthy goals. (At least, that's what seems logical to me.)

Not everyone has the will-power to wait for marshmallows, but you might try to develop that trait. You may like the results.