The Lost Art of Moderation

You’ve probably heard of the Stanford marshmallow experiment. In the ’60s and ’70s, Walter Mischel — a psychologist at Stanford University — put one preschooler at a time at a desk on which he had placed a bell and a couple marshmallows or other treats equally tough for a kid to resist.

“The researcher told each child that he had to leave, but that when he returned, she could eat both marshmallows,” wrote Michael Bourne in a January 2014 New York Times Magazine article. “If she wanted one marshmallow before then, however, she could ring the bell and eat one, but not both.”

Once alone, the children stared at the marshmallows, or sniffed them, or buried their faces in their hands while they pined, or ate the marshmallows like all that is good depended on their digestion. The study, which discerned differences between people who delay gratification and people who don’t, points to an important truth: We are not unlike preschoolers who are left alone with marshmallows.

We have urges, desires, interests, instincts. We want stuff, like to flirt with or date somebody. Some of us are inclined to get or do what we want as soon as we want to get or do it. Few of us consider this: like for the preschoolers who agreed to wait 15 minutes because it meant two marshmallows instead of one, there are good reasons to delay action, even if what you want’s within your reach.

But we resist it because moderation is a lost art.

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The Lost Art of Patience

I am not good at patience. Neither is the elderly woman I met on the checkout line at Sears once. She stood behind me, clutching a pink nightgown wrapped in plastic, prepared to pay for it with debit or credit. I — though then in my early 20s — rifled through papers and pens in my purse until I finally found what I sought: my checkbook.

Responses to the person who writes a check at the checkout counter vary in intensity, and include but are not limited to stink-eye and mockery. The elderly woman settled for an audible sigh. But I ignored it, pen in hand and smile on face, prepared to exercise my right to write a check for whatever it is that I bought.

At the register, I recognized the cashier — a classmate from middle school. Conversation ensued. So did stink-eye, from behind me. But I pressed on, writing that check and talking while I wrote. Then I tore it out of the book and slid it across the counter. But the cashier handed it back. As the elderly woman rolled her eyes, the cashier pointed out my mistake.

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The Lost Art of Discernment

I smiled at the face on my computer’s screen — a MySpace profile pic of a Christian boy with bright eyes and a bass guitar.

He was 21 and part of a band made up of a handful of my friends. I was 19 and had seen enough to come to a quick conclusion:

I should date him.

We texted and talked, and felt tethered to each other before we ever met face to face. I chose him, and he chose me, and we forged onward, determined to share life without discerning whether we should.

This is because discernment is a lost art. We cross paths with a person whose gaze raises our heart rate, whose humor gets us every time, or who gets us. We are physically attracted to him or her, and mentally distracted by his or her presence (or absence). We decide with haste to date him or her based mostly (if not solely) on what we feel when we first meet, without acknowledging dating’s purpose: to discern marriage.

The result? We aim in dating to maintain the warm, fuzzy feelings that brought us together. We date without discerning. But discernment is an art we can bring back, if we ask important questions while we date, including but not limited to these:

Do I know the truth about this person? Continue reading “The Lost Art of Discernment”